Fast Five

The Voice judge and Oklahoma native said last night that he wanted to put together a relief concert in support of victims of the massive Oklahoma tornado that hit earlier this week, killing dozens. Now NBC is working fast to make it happen. If it comes together, I understand the Blake Shelton-led concert would be held early next week — the network is putting together a few more elements, including where the event will be held. Details about the performances are sketchy, but it’s anticipated that several of Shelton’s Voice co-judges would be involved. Shelton performed a song with wife Miranda Lambert during last night’s live episode of The Voice as Red Cross donation information played on the screen. TV benefits like this can come together quickly. In November, NBC hosted a commercial-free live one-hour benefit telethon Hurricane Sandy: Coming Together less than a week after the superstorm made landfall in the U.S. Matt Lauer hosted the show that was carried across several NBC networks including USA, MSNBC, E! and by HBO, Discovery’s Fit & Health and Velocity networks and The Weather Channel and donations went to the Red Cross.

The mobile gaming tie-in to Universal’s Fast & Furious 6 launched on the iTunes App Store last week and is #1 among free apps in 45 countries. Created with SF-based studio Kabam, it’s also the #1 overall game in 69 countries, the top racing game in 112 countries, and the #1 action game in 85 countries. Its iPad app version runs comparable if even wider in saturation as the top free app in 81 countries. By contrast, Paramount‘s Star Trek: The Game – tied to the release of Star Trek Into Darkness – stayed in-house and it’s doing lousy since it came out last month. According to VG Chartz, unit sales in its first three weeks are only 140K to date across PC, Xbox 360, and PS3 consoles. It’s also considered a failure because it’s very buggy despite years of development. Critics and users alike gave it poor reviews.  So what happened? Insiders say the game originated under Paramount Digital Entertainment president Tom Lesinski who made the decision to develop and produce it in-house vs licensing the intellectual property to a 3rd party publisher like Electronic Arts, Activision, or Ubisoft. When Lesinski was fired in September 2011, his domain was absorbed by the studio. The Star Trek gaming project was picked up by Paramount Promotions’ Brian Miller, SVP of Worldwide Marketing Partnerships and ... Read More »