After months of courting offers, Variety has finally settled on a buyer. Penske Media, backed by private equity firm Third Point, will acquire the trade publication for approximately $25 million.

Jay Penske told the Los Angeles Times that Nikki Finke will not be involved in running Variety, and that the publication will be operated separately from Deadline.com, though staffers may contribute to both. TheWrap hears from insiders that Finke is “having a major tantrum” because Penske will not give her a role in running Variety.

Variety‘s remaining 120 staffers are undoubtedly concerned about more layoffs, but the Chief Executive was vague about his plans when speaking to the LAT:

“We wouldn’t be buying this business if we didn’t have a plan to correct the recent deterioration of both revenues and profit,” Penske said. “We are not buying Variety to gut the newsroom. We are buying the business to build it. Are there going to be changes? Yes. Do we want to reduce our dependency on print revenues? Yes. How quickly that can happen, we’ll know more in the coming months.”

Penske also said that no decision had been made concerning the fate of the print versions of the trade. Variety publishes both a weekly edition and a daily edition on the weekdays.

A cryptic Deadline advisory posted Saturday morning by Nikki Finke has some Hollywood trade watchers speculating that the PMC-Variety deal is done. The 11:34 a.m. PDT September 29 message reads:

The Deadline Team won’t provide 24/7 news coverage for at least the next week. One of the reasons is DH business affecting the entire staff in LA, NY and Europe. As a result, we’ll probably miss some breaking stories and delay monitoring some comments, emails and phone calls. Please cut us some slack for the duration.

Which begs the question – will Jay Penske be making a “big” announcement at Soho House in West Hollywood tomorrow night? That’s when the “PMC” in Penske Media Corp. will briefly overlap with “private members’ club,” as Deadline hosts a “Kick Off the Awards Season” party there from 6 to 9 p.m. A who’s who of studio execs, film publicists and awards season PR consultants will hobnob with not just Penske but many other PMC/Deadline folks: film editor Mike Fleming, tv editor Nellie Andreeva, awards columnist Pete Hammond, marketing consultant Madelyn Hammond, executive editor David Lieberman, reporter Dominic Patten, PMC senior vp Nic Paul, PMC senior sales director Cathy Goepfert, Awards/Line managing editor Anthony D’Alessandro and Awards/Line editor Christy Grosz.*

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The ominous, bizarre, hilarious specter of Mike Fleming and Jeff Sneider working for the same parent company has reared its head again. This time in the form of a Monday afternoon LA Times report by Ben Fritz:

Penske Media Corp., the owner of Deadline and six other online properties, is now the leading bidder for Variety, partnered with private equity fund Shamrock Capital Advisors, according to two knowledgeable people not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

The company, led by Jay Penske (pictured), the 33-year-old son of automobile magnate Roger Penske, could close a deal to purchase the paper in the next three weeks for around $30 million, one of the people added.

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Will this make Variety a more attractive acquisition target for the likes of Avenue Capital Group and Jay Penske?

Per an announcement this morning on the variety.com website, the trade publication has followed up its exclusive trade media partnership with the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce for Walk of Fame induction ceremonies with another curbside special-access arrangement. This time, it’s with Chinese Theatres:

Variety has inked a deal that makes it the exclusive trade media partner for the Hollywood icon’s famous hand-and-footprint ceremonies. “We are very excited to be working with the Chinese Theatres in this capacity,” Variety publisher Brian Gott said. “They have never had an exclusive trade media partner before, and we are honored to be their chosen partner.”

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Another week, another [BLANK]-is-in-the-lead-to-buy-Variety news story. This one from a pair of reporters (the New York Post’s Keith J. Kelly and Josh Kosman) who have filed several, similar previous dispatches.

According to the duo’s sources, Ron Burkle walked away after his recent low-ball $20 million range offer for the trade was rejected. Which reportedly leaves Jay Penske (PMC) and Marc Lasry (Avenue Capital Group):

Reed Elsevier has been forced to cut Variety’s asking price by more than 25 percent and offer “seller financing” to close the deal, The Post has learned. It has recently cut Variety’s asking price to below $30 million from its original $40 million price tag, sources close to the situation said.

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The New York Post has been doing a good job of keeping tabs on the ongoing saga of Variety’s sale. This morning, the paper suggests that Avenue Capital Group’s outlook has been changed somewhat by the due diligence process:

Sources tell Page Six that when Avenue’s bean counters recently ran Variety’s numbers on the deal, they wound up lowering their bid. “Everyone’s been balking at the price,” a Hollywood insider familiar with the sale told us, adding, “another problem is that [any new buyer] will then have to put money into it immediately, to bring Variety into the modern age.”

The Post also claims that while Ron Burkle is officially out, PMC’s Jay Penske is “still circling.” Hear that, Variety gang? Nikki Finke and Mike Fleming could still possibly become colleagues.

Previously on FishbowlLA:
Report: Variety’s New Owner is… Avenue Capital

There is a gigantic Hollywood media story crossing the wire from Rhode Island Massachusetts, courtesy of The Inquirer and Mirror’s Jason Graziadei.

According to the shocking dispatch, Jay Penske, 33-year-old CEO of Nikki Finke parent company Penske Media Corporation, was arrested early this morning along with his older brother Mark for an alleged break-in at the Nantucket Yacht Club. And that’s not all:

According to a police report, the incident was initially reported as an assault and battery when two women approached police on Broad Street, claiming they had been assaulted by two men, later identified as the Penske brothers, at the yacht club’s parking lot.

One of the women claimed the Penske brothers were urinating in the parking lot, and that when she confronted Jay Penske, he “turned and continued to urinate on her boots. He then proceeded to grab her arm and push her… Police claimed they apprehended Jay Penske attempting to run away from the club, and that they found Mark Penske at the employee apartment after he had fallen down the staircase, suffering several cuts on this right arm.

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On a site-to-site comparison basis, The Hollywood Reporter continues to attract many more monthly unique visitors than Nikki Finke’s Deadline. This is due largely to the fact that THR goes far beyond the trade beat with its separate high-volume consumer coverage.

However, per a press release put out today by Deadline’s parent company, it’s a very different story when Deadline’s numbers are combined with those of sister sites like Hollywood Life, TVLine, BGR and Movieline. For the month of May, the Penske Media Digital Network as a whole racked up a whopping 66.7 million unique visitors, placing it at the aggregate 98th spot on the comScore hit parade.

“The rapid ascent of the PMC Digital Network into a Top 100 comScore property proves the power and primacy of our editors and reporters and their unbeatable content,” said Jay Penske (pictured), chairman and CEO of PMC. “We look forward to bringing that content to even larger, greater and more-engaged audiences in the months ahead.”

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If you thought the gloves were off last Friday between Penske Media Corporation (PMC) and the Hollywood Reporter, you ain’t read nothing yet.

Today, Jay Penske‘s evolving media empire has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Prometheus Global Media, overseer of the Hollywood Reporter. This type of complaint is tricky to prove, let alone win; usually, it comes down to the strength of the supporting exhibits.

On that front, there are seven exhibits in all comparing screen and source code grabs of the front pages of TVLine.com and HollywoodReporter.com. PMC is basically alleging that the latter’s “featured stories grid” bears far too many navigation and programming similarities to the patent-pending programming anchoring its TV industry website.

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The latest episode in Nikki Finke‘s ongoing war of words with the Hollywood Reporter is posted tonight on Deadline.com, plain for all to see. At the urging of her boss, Jay Penske, Finke has shared her email response to the competing trade’s parent company law firm charge of conduct extra-unbecoming. The email begins and ends with an expletive; in between, there are a number of incendiary charges.

Finke has apparently been working for several months now on a big THR expose piece, so she was at the ready with all sorts of return fire when this legal missive crossed her desk. She claims four different Prometheus-THR execs have slandered her, suggests that equating the two outlets is like comparing the Economist to the National Enquirer, and alleges an ongoing rank-and-file swirl:

- THR staff keep calling me and asking for jobs saying they are worried about The Hollywood Reporter’s future.

– THR keeps coming after Deadline’s staff to hire them “with a blank check” even though we have contracts.

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