Oscar Hind-Sight is 20/20 - Posted February 25, 2008
The Academy Awards from the rear-view mirror: The Fug Girls should replace Kimora. Alessandra Stanley just about nails it, except for getting the Busey moment wrong. Worst clip montages ever--in some cases, stills were used, probably because there's no WGA payment involved. Obit sequence--where was Brad Renfro? Charles Lane? (Roy Schneider missed the deadline, no... [FishBowlLA]

Fired LAT Editor John Montorio: "It Was My Destiny" - Posted February 19, 2008
Ad Age reports that the American media work force is at a 15 year low--only 886,900 employed, thanks to the slumping newspaper industry. And speaking of slumping--whole lot of changes at the LA Times. The LAT, with paid circulation less than that number above, is now helmed by Russ Stanton, who lost... [FishBowlLA]

WGA 08 Strike: Reax to the DGA Deal-a-rama - Posted January 21, 2008
Nikki Finke is back, and her commenters are happy. She leads off with the provocative headline: That Shitty DGA Deal is at Least a Start which will be great to remember if the WGA signs on for that same deal. United Hollywood strike captains say: The DGA deal, as we understand it, is neither... [FishBowlLA]

What Did Leno Know and When Did He Know It? - Posted January 4, 2008
Jay Leno's late night triumph seems to hinge on his misunderstanding of the Guild rules, wilful or not. NBC says he got permission from Patric Verrone, which is backed up in the NY Times by that scourge of journalists--the unidentified source: One of Mr. Leno's writers who attended the meeting with Mr.... [FishBowlLA]

Morning Reading List, 01.03.08 - Posted January 3, 2008
Good morning Washington. It's Caucus Day! Quickly navigate Morning Reading List: REVOLVING DOOR | NEWSPAPERS | TV | ONLINE MEDIA | MAGAZINES | RADIO | JOBS You are torn as to whether The New York Time's hiring of Bill Kristol was a wise choice. REVOLVING DOOR Roll Call's Moira Bagley -- a FishbowlDC hottie -- is... [FishBowlDC]

WGA 07 Strike : What Happens Next? - Posted December 28, 2007
The readers of Nikki Finke (i.e., everyone who's still interested in the outcome of the WGA strike) respond to her question: What Should Happen Next? with varying degrees of naivete (get the general public involved!), realpolitik (prepare to take whatever the DGA gets), general nuttiness (go back to work now and then... [FishBowlLA]

WGA 07 Strike: Last Week of 2007 - Posted December 27, 2007
Nikki Finke ran an open letter to AMPTP from writers who've got pilot deals. The tone was a tich whiny, as her commenters pointed out, proving that her blog is read by the real Hollywood crowd, as opposed to the sweet, if clueless, fans. Ken Levine is on vacation in Hawaii. (You... [FishBowlLA]

Media Mavericks and Moguls: Ross Johnson - Posted December 7, 2007
Friday lunch at Orso was surprisingly fruitful, big name-wise, with Mel Brooks holding court at a table full of cronies, Larry David in a black velor tracksuit, and tall, blond and Brit Bill Nighy looking dreamy. Perfect for FBLA's new weekly feature, Lunch with Media Moguls and Mavericks. Ross Johnson surprised a... [FishBowlLA]

Sundown on Sunset - Posted November 30, 2007
Evel Knievel dies at age 69. Martin Scorsese's newest film: La Clave Reserva Just in time for the holidays! KOST fires Kim Amidon, after 22 years. via Franklin Ave. Hollywood Bitchslap has an Oscar tote board up. Sasha Stone as well with better commentary but less useful visuals. EW lists the 50 Smartest... [FishBowlLA]

LA Press Club: National Journalism Awards - Posted November 28, 2007
The LA Press Club announces the National Entertainment Journalism Awards: Entertainment reporters, editors and critics across the country are invited to enter a new journalism contest that honors those who write, speak or blog about one of the nation's most important industries.... Through our new NEJ awards, we hope to reach hundreds of... [FishBowlLA]

WGA 07 Strike Week 4: Talk Amongst Yourselves - Posted November 26, 2007
Call United Hollywood Live at 12-1:30 p.m. Pacific (3-4:30 p.m. Eastern) Vote for the Striking Writers as I Want Media's media personality of 2007. (Perez Hilton? Are they high?) The NY Times tells all: about Nikki Finke. She's an alternative journalist? Bloomberg also pays attention. TV Guide's Online Video Award winners announced, which is... [FishBowlLA]

WGA 07 Strike Week 2: Represent! - Posted November 13, 2007
Nina Bargiel has been mistaken for flavor-of-the-moment Diablo Cody. What picketing is like. Writers aren't used to this much exercise. Rob Long explains the business model of sitcoms to Silicon Alley. Shocked merriment ensues. Joss Whedon's fans are researching a strike FAQ and chicken soup vendors. Nikki Finke picks the winners of... [FishBowlLA]

Producers Guild: Include Us Out of AMPTP - Posted November 12, 2007
FBLA has been waiting for this. The Producers Guild of America, which isn't a guild like the others, but more of a trade association, or even a club, wants to make sure that they're not confused with the Alliance Of Motion Picture & Television Producers (AMPTP), aka the bad guys... [FishBowlLA]

WGA Strike News Updates - Posted November 1, 2007
Nikki Finke has opened her column up to reader comments about the WGA strike. Who knew she was so popular in Argentina? Finke's coverage is far and away the most comprehensive, too. KCET has already assured that the station's prizewinning A Place of Our Own will start in January, strike or no... [FishBowlLA]

Jeff Robinov Retrospective - Posted October 11, 2007
Seen above, in happier times, Warner's Alan Horn, producer Joel Silver, and in the role of Baby Bear, Jeff Robinov, president of production. Robinov, you may recall, was quoted by Nikki Finke as saying that Warner's was "longer doing movies with women in the lead". Gloria Allred called for a boycott, meaning... [FishBowlLA]

Elle's Women in Hollywood Roundtable - Posted October 11, 2007
Salon's Rebecca Traister sits in on Elle's Women in Hollywood round table discussion on the state of show biz, why there aren't more women directors, and so on. The group wonders why women don't go to opening weekends, forgetting that people watch movies lots of other ways than at the multiplex,... [FishBowlLA]

Nikki Finke Talks the Talk In ELLE - Posted October 10, 2007
Nikki Finke tells Lisa Chase--well, if not everything, a whole lot in ELLE. Great Line 1 Believe me, there's nothing worse in Hollywood than being called a putz and having all your pals read it. Great Line 2 ...I watch the Discovery Channel's Shark Week, to get behavioral pointers. I would love a... [FishBowlLA]

Kid Nation: The Ugliness Continues - Posted September 18, 2007
Nikki Finke says TV critics weren't the only ones who didn't receive screeners of the controversial Kid Nation reality/kidsploitation show. The CBS board of directors hasn't had the opportunity to see the show in advance, either. Nikki writes, "Instead, the directors will wind up watching the show along with the rest... [FishBowlLA]

Goddamn Stars Get The Shit Bleeped Out of Them--No Screwing Around on the Emmys - Posted September 17, 2007
Nikki Finke suggests everyone take off their tinfoil tiaras, and notice that Sally Field wasn't the only person to get bleeped last night. The network bleeped curse words three times during acceptance speeches last night: when Field used "goddamn" and when Katherine Heigl mouthed, "Oh shit", and when Ray Romano about... [FishBowlLA]

BREAKING: John Connolly---No Phone Records for Pellicano's Lawyers - Posted August 27, 2007
A win for journalists--a federal judge just granted Vanity Fair writer John Connolly's motion to quash the subpoena for his telephone records for the Anthony Pellicano case. Steven Gruel, Pellicano's lawyer had been lusting for Connolly's Verizon records. Nikki Finke has all backstory, for those not up to speed on this.... [FishBowlLA]

LA Observed Runs Patrick Goldstein's Killed Column - Posted July 24, 2007
Patrick Goldstein's Big Picture column for today was killed after he suggested the LAT make a pact with recording artists to give away scads of free CDs (a la Britain's Mail on Sunday). Newspapers, as you may have heard, are in deep doo-doo. While the Times still is a profitable business, our... [FishBowlLA]

WWD Editor's Note on Nikki Finke Piece - Posted July 18, 2007
Jacob Bernstein's editors released a semi-retraction in today's print edition of Women's Wear Daily: EDITOR'S NOTE: A WWD article on Hollywood writer Nikki Finke, published on July 6, page 16, was pulled last week from the paper's Web site, wwd.com. The article, by WWD features writer Jacob Bernstein, depicted Finke as a... [FishBowlLA]

WWD Not Talking About Jacob Bernstein, Nikki Finke - Posted July 16, 2007
WWD isn't talking about Jacob Bernstein's profile of Nikki Finke that disappeared from the online archives, despite being published over the July 4th weekend. Andrea Kaplan told FBLA "we have no comment". We asked Luke Ford if WWD was making him take down his post quoting from the story. He told... [FishBowlLA]

Jacob Bernstein's Nikki Finke Profile in WWD: MIA? - Posted July 15, 2007
Surely, it can't be a coincidence that the same weekend that FBLA gets an email from a high-powered PR type alerting us to the Jacob Bernstein profile of Nikki Finke in WWD, that Luke Ford and LA Observed also run posts about it. The story appeared in the July... [FishBowlLA]

Jeff Wells To David Poland: Play Nice - Posted June 22, 2007
We somehow have been cc'd into an ugly chain of e-mailed invectives between Nikki Finke, David Poland, Jeff Wells and the organizers of the L.A. Press Club Awards. This is the equivalent of watching other people's parents fight. It's uncomfortable, sure, but terrifically interesting stuff. So, from our inbox to you, here... [FishBowlLA]

LA Press Club: Does Something Stink? No, Says Finke - Posted June 17, 2007
Jeffery Wells, of Hollywood Elsewhere, sent Deadline Hollywood Daily's Nikki Finke a (kinda) congratulatory e-mail that asks whether L.A. Press Club Award winners are chosen based on how many beers they throw back with the judges. Here's the exchange: Nikki- Congrats -- good for you, good work, hats off. That said, I have to... [FishBowlLA]

Why We (Heart) Nikki Finke - Posted June 12, 2007
We've officially arrived. It took nearly a year, but FBLA has finally registered on the radar of the venerable, incomparable, indispensable Nikki Finke. Well, actually, that statement was yet another example of the "inaccuracies," Nikki alludes to in her column this week about mediabistro.com. See, Nikki regularly writes us and our bosses at... [FishBowlLA]

Morning Reading List, 06.08.07 - Posted June 8, 2007
Good morning Washington. An NBC release announced that "According to Nielsen Media Research data, 'Meet the Press with Tim Russert' topped the Sunday morning public affairs competition, winning the week ending Sunday, June 3, 2007 in total viewers, homes and in the key demographic adults 25-54." On Sunday, "Meet the Press"... [FishBowlDC]

Nikki Finke Rankles Ben Silverman - Posted June 4, 2007
James Hibbard, at TV Week.com, reports that Nikki Finke got under the skin of NBC's newly anointed Ben Silverman with all that private plane stuff. Has he read what she wrote about Teri Weinberg? Weinberg allegedly takes credit for the sucess of The Office, which must be news to Greg Daniels. FBLA... [FishBowlLA]

Nikki Finke on Ben Silverman's Sweet Deal with NBC and All That Have Gone Before - Posted May 30, 2007
While we've not always agreed with Nikki Finke, her latest post is a work of genius, if only for her skill with Google Images. Never have so many people looked so dreadful--and with good reason. Writing about NBC's cozy deal with Ben Silverman, Finke pins Jeff Zucker to the wall, writing:... [FishBowlLA]

NBC Snags Reveille's Silverman, Blows Taps for Reilly - Posted May 29, 2007
FBLA's anonymous tip turned out to be true: NBC is trying to ditch Kevin Reilly, and right before prom, too. News of Reilly's replacement by Ben Silverman of Reveille Entertainment was emailed around town. Reilly himself found out via email. According to Nikki Finke, she knew before he did. (Think he's not... [FishBowlLA]

Changes At WSJ, NBC - Posted May 28, 2007
Some Memorial Day weekend job shuffling of note. First, from our own Revolving Door: Brian Steinberg, Wall Street Journal ad columnist, is headed to AdAge where he'll be the TV editor. And some big holiday weekend hustling at NBC, where Jeff Zucker has tapped reality mogul Ben Silverman to replace NBC Entertainment president... [FishBowlNY]

HBO's Chief Gets Whacked - Posted May 9, 2007
That didn't take long. A day after Chris Albrecht took a leave of absence from his post following a weekend in which he was arrested for allegedly beating his girlfriend, Time Warner has whacked the HBO chief executive. Nikki Finke reports that because of "Albrecht's past behavior with women at the... [FishBowlNY]

Chris Albrecht's Past Comes Back to Haunt Him - Posted May 9, 2007
Claudia Eller at the LA Times unearths Sasha Emerson, a former HBO exec and Albrecht romantic partner. Even though Emerson wouldn't comment on the story, her affair with Albrecht, the subsequent breakup and the inevitable hush money payout are all recounted. Emerson had a kid, left show biz and is an... [FishBowlLA]

Portfolio: 'CEO Porn To Masturbate' To? - Posted April 16, 2007
What the usual suspects — and others — are saying about Portfolio's launch: NYT: "Business is about power," Condé Nast Portfolio's editor Joanne Lipman writes in her first editor's letter. "And guts. And passion. Business coverage should be too." Business is also about brains, and Condé Nast's were certainly questioned when... [FishBowlNY]

'Unprofessional': Ex-Timesman Bernie Weinraub Fires Back At Times After Scathing Review - Posted April 11, 2007
Former New York Times Hollywood reporter Bernie Weinraub is furious over a scathing review of his new Off-Broadway play, the Accomplices, by a Times freelancer. "The reviews keep coming in, virtually of them good to excellent," Weinraub tells his "close friend" Nikki Finke. "Sure, some of them point out flaws in the... [FishBowlNY]

Sundown on Sunset - Posted April 6, 2007
What an insanely hectic week. Here's a look back at our favorite media stories: Sam Zell Buys Tribune: All hell breaks loose in the react and next-day story world, including a number of pieces about how David Geffen may or may not still be in the game. Nikki Finke wants us to... [FishBowlLA]

Will the LA Times Pulp the Grazer Guest Edit Section? - Posted March 22, 2007
Andres Martinez covers his butt in a blog post at the LA Times. He's quick to point out that he wasn't alone, no siree, in deciding that Brian Grazer was a swell choice as Guest Editor. "Two senior editors, besides me, agreed that Brian was a good choice" "we all read up on... [FishBowlLA]

Andres Martinez, Kelly Mullens, Brian Grazer: Three's Company - Posted March 21, 2007
FBLA thinks this is almost too good to be true: Andres Martinez, the Op-Ed Editor at the LA Times has been dating Kelly Mullens, who was an executive with Sitrick and Company. One of that firm's clients is Brian Grazer, the guest editor of this weekend's Current section. Former Sitrick exec.,... [FishBowlLA]

Nikki Finke Explains What's Wrong With Across the Universe - Posted March 21, 2007
Just the other day, David Carr in the NY Times admitted what we already knew: New Yorkers don't understand show biz all that much. And today, Hollywood's own Nikki Finke tears into Sharon Waxman's version of events surrounding art-chick Julie Taymor's battle with Joe Roth over some musical romance movie called... [FishBowlLA]

Is Hollywood Buying Nick Kristof's Story? - Posted March 16, 2007
It should. That's what Nikki Finke thinks about the Timesman's second annual "Win A Trip With Nick" contest, and seems to be, oddly, almost lobbying for: When Hollywood options this (and you will), remember you heard about it here first. ... Hint to Hollywood: Pitch this project as Animal House meets Blood... [FishBowlNY]

Brian Grazer: Editor for a Day at LA Times - Posted March 15, 2007
The LA Times is going for a guest editor for the Sunday Op-ed section, Current, and so picked the obvious candidate, Brian Grazer for the March 25th issue. From the press release: We asked Brian Grazer to kick off the program because we wanted to tap into his creative vision. Brian's an... [FishBowlLA]

Monday Morning Meta Media Mashup - Posted February 26, 2007
A weekly meta-roundup of our favorite (mostly) New York media pundits, what they're saying, why they're saying it, and an all-important grade, subjective and arbitrary — just like their columns! "A Cheeky Broadsheet's Tabloid Makeover" | David Carr, New York Times New York Times Carpetbagger and media reporter David Carr weighs in... [FishBowlNY]

Nikki Finke to Return to the LAT? No, But LA Mag Thinks She Should - Posted February 22, 2007
Los Angeles Magazine has a few suggestions for "fixing" the LAT -- one of them being that the paper of record lure Nikki Finke away from her post at LA Weekly. A excerpt per Hollywood Wiretap: She isn't always accurate (but)...she is almost alone in conveying a palpable excitement about what the... [FishBowlLA]

Taking Out The Trash, 02.22.07 - Posted February 22, 2007
This is a close one. Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks are in a tight race. Starbucks has the lead so far. An NBC release announced that "NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams" "was back on top as the most-watched network evening newscast during the week of February 12-16, 2007, attracting 10.168 million total viewers,"... [FishBowlDC]

Beyoncé Knocks 'Real' Swimsuit Models Off SI Cover - Posted February 15, 2007
Sports journalist and ex-Sports Illustrated editor Roy Johnson had the rumor scoop, and now we see he was right: Beyoncé is the 2007 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue cover model. The "model" part is the point of contention for some media machers like Nikki Finke, who uses the occasion to note that... [FishBowlNY]

Slamdance, Sundance, Squaredance: The Buzz - Posted January 24, 2007
Slamdance Religous sex cultists from the Children of God broke up a screening of Noah Thompson's film about growing up in the cult. From the folks who brought us Cops: The King Of Kong. Sundance Nick Nolte I can't even get an erection anymore. All the noise about Hounddog can't hide the fact that... [FishBowlLA]

Slamdance, Sundance, Squaredance: The Buzz - Posted January 24, 2007
Slamdance Religous sex cultists from the Children of God broke up a screening of Noah Thompson's film about growing up in the cult. From the folks who brought us Cops: The King Of Kong. Sundance Nick Nolte I can't even get an erection anymore. All the noise about Hounddog can't hide the fact that... [FishBowlLA]

Times Shakes Up Its Hollywood Coverage - Posted January 23, 2007
Interesting insidery news from Nikki Finke, who has good grist on some Hollywood coverage changes at the New York Times. First, the Times is dropping L.A.-based movie editor Michael Cieply, adding him to its stable of Hollywood reporters, and replacing him with Lorne Manly, a long-time media reporter-turned-writer in New York. The... [FishBowlNY]

Golden Globe Gossip Round-up - Posted January 16, 2007
FBLA finds all the remarks worth repeating about the Golden Globes. WoW Report Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey started out strong, but lost focus. Best exchange: F: At least Annette Bening doesn't mind being on camera actually drinking. R: Drinking, with bad hair. Deadline Hollywood Nikki Finke live-blogged.Best line: (Dreamgirls) pic's producer David Geffen--who took the... [FishBowlLA]

Golden Globe Gossip Round-up - Posted January 16, 2007
FBLA finds all the remarks worth repeating about the Golden Globes. WoW Report Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey started out strong, but lost focus. Best exchange: F: At least Annette Bening doesn't mind being on camera actually drinking. R: Drinking, with bad hair. Deadline Hollywood Nikki Finke live-blogged.Best line: (Dreamgirls) pic's producer David Geffen--who took the... [FishBowlLA]