The Hollywood Foreign Press Association held their 69^th Annual Golden Globes ceremony last night and it was, as always, a star-studded affair. The broadcast, which is beamed into homes in one hundred and ninety-nine countries around the world, also generated over one million social media mentions on Sunday, January 15, 2012.

Here’s how it played out:

• Hours leading up to broadcast: 9,502 mentions per hour
• During the Golden Globes: over 250,000 mentions in the first hour
• End of ceremony: 727,199 mentions

One of the bigger topics of conversation going into the Golden Globes ceremony was speculation related to returning host and British comedian Ricky Gervais. Gervais stirred up a lot of controversy at the 2011 Golden Globes, taking direct aim at a number of high profile celebrities. His performance was disliked by many of the celebrities and at the time it was thought that he likely wouldn’t be asked back to host. Of course, Gervais was asked to return as host, his third year now, and the social web weighed in.

There were a total of 34,855 mentions of Gervais within conversations directly related to the Golden Globes on Sunday, January 15. Watching the broadcast, it was clear that many of the celebrities in the audience were cringing at his wisecracks and some looked visibly annoyed, however, he got a resoundingly positive review from those who weighed in on social. Using automated sentiment, 65.2% of social mentions were positive while only 34.6% were negative.

The next big award show is, of course, the Oscars. With the Golden Globes generating over one million mentions do you expect the Oscars to surpass this, be roughly equal, or come in under the Globes?

Tags: #goldenglobes, conversation, engagement, golden globes, media, television