This again!
Nikki Finke and her boss, Jay Penske, are fighting once more, and Finke has been telling people she's leaving Deadline imminently.
It's an emotional roller coaster, which all might culminate — once again — in returning to the status quo at Deadline and Penske Media. Which is what happened in June after Sharon Waxman reported in The Wrap that Penske had gotten fed up and fired Finke. Waxman's story proved to jump the gun, and even resulted in a scolding from Finke: Nikki Finke To Sharon Waxman: Just Stop It.
The lore this summer has been that Penske's and Finke's mutual animosity toward Waxman gave them common cause to try to make things work — just to prove Waxman wrong.
But that peace seems not to have lasted. Finke's complaints, apparently, remain the same: that she has been shut out of the Variety reboot, that Variety gets a lot of Penske's resources, and that Deadline is understaffed in comparison. As for Penske's complaints: Nikki Finke!
Finke would not comment for this story. An email directly to Penske resulted in this response from his in-house PR person: "In response to your request for comment regarding Nikki Finke, I wanted to reiterate what was already stated on the record after The Wrap article was published back in June of this year: Nikki has a multi-year contract with the company, and it is the company's absolute intention to continue its obligations under its agreements with her."
Exhausting. Til next time, Nikki-watchers.