Hip-Hop Celebrates 50 Years, Barbie-Mania Continues: Entertainment News Trends to Know

A look at the entertainment industry news from PR Newswire in July and August that you might have missed.

 

Entertainment News Trends, July-August 2023

 

By Cliff Moore | Published Sept. 9, 2023

 

Roughly 2,000 entertainment press releases were distributed over PR Newswire throughout July and August of this year.

The most notable trend over this two-month period centered around the 50th anniversary of hip-hop. 

The remaining trends continued to build on two of the previous trends highlighted in the last blog for May and June: “Barbie,” highlighted in the summer movie season snapshot, and AI, covered in the AI in art recap.  More on those further on, but first take a look at the most noteworthy releases in the realm of entertainment sent over the wire in July and August 2023.

Our Most Popular Entertainment Releases

Five releases stood out in our entertainment feed through views and engagement, and they differ significantly, touching on an array of topics:

  • Regal celebrated National Cinema Day on August 27 by partnering with the Cinema Foundation to offer $4 movie tickets and $4 concession combos.
  • Wingstop collaborated with hip-hop artist Latto to debut a new dry rub flavor, Latto's Lemon Herb Remix. The flavor can also be experienced through a new combo offering, The Latto Meal.
  • PokerGO announced the 2023 World Series of Poker Main Event final table.  The nine players competed for a $12,100,000 top prize.
  • DIRECTV denied Nexstar's fee demands, resulting in the nation’s largest local TV outage and the temporary loss of more than 200 stations for DIRECTV, DIRECTV STREAM and U-verse customers in more than 100 metro areas.
  • Goya Cares, of Goya Foods, Inc., celebrated the success of over 2 million viewers of SOUND OF FREEDOM, of which they were an executive producer.  

 

 

Entertainment News Trends

Outside of the five releases mentioned above, notable trends emerged, or reemerged, throughout July and August 2023. The three trends easily identified among our entertainment-based releases are as follows:

50th Anniversary of Hip-Hop

According to The 50th Anniversary of Hip-Hop website, August 11, 1973, marked the beginning of this cultural phenomenon. And now, 50 years later, artists, organizations, and people from around the world are honoring the birth of the genre. 

Celebrations through events, collaborations, advertisements, philanthropic efforts, educational pieces, and more dominated the news cycle this summer. 

Here is just a snippet of some of these releases sent via PR Newswire:

Barbie-Mania

“Barbie” has officially dominated the box office and entertainment industry this year, in more ways than one.

The movie is now the highest-grossing film of 2023, Warner Bros’ highest-grossing film ever, and the first and highest-grossing female-produced film of all time, surpassing $1 billion. 

In the last blog, we touched briefly on “Barbie” as part of our section on the summer movie season.  But due to its incredible success, it’s worth giving Barbie her own continued recognition in this blog’s installment. 

The hype has not ended, and even more press releases went over the wire the past two months that deserve some attention:

Artificial Intelligence in Entertainment

Like “Barbie,” artificial intelligence is also dominating the news cycle this year, and the entertainment industry has seen no shortage of related press releases across the wire.

From movies to apps to games, AI has its hands in nearly everything entertainment.

Through July and August 2023, thousands of releases were sent through PR Newswire that mentioned either “artificial intelligence” or “AI.”

The list below calls out some of the most engaging ones centered around entertainment:

Conclusion

As summer winds down, the rest of 2023 and into 2024 will continue to celebrate hip-hop’s 50th.  With awards season just on the horizon, we look forward to seeing what companies and artists do to continue honoring the music genre, especially the awards and performances they’re sure to bring.

All eyes are on Barbie to see what other accolades she can rack up, and maybe even some news about a sequel. I know most won’t complain. Maybe even Ken will get his own feature?

And AI will continue to be front and center in the entertainment industry. What disruptors can we expect next? 

Stay tuned for the next installment of our entertainment news trends roundup.

 

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About the Author

Cliff Moore headshotCliff Moore is a Senior Customer Content Specialist in PR Newswire's Customer Content Services Department and has been with the company since 2013. When not assisting clients with their press release needs, he enjoys all things pop culture, plants, hosting gatherings, and playing any game you can think of.