Media reactions to this morning’s Variety-PMC deal confirmation are coming in faster and more furiously than a Vin Diesel-Paul Walker car chase.

But forget for a moment about Jay Penske, Nikki Finke and Bonnie Fuller. As NYC-based columnist Roger Friedman astutely points out, one of the central figures in this new Hollywood trade horizon could be an individual most media watchers are unfamiliar with:

Sitting pretty on the Penske board is my old friend, Gerry Byrne (pictured), who commands a daily table at Michael’s. Years ago, it was Gerry who engineered Variety’s stunning comeback from the dead with Peter Bart as editor-in-chief. In the early 90s they revamped the Variety design and made the paper matter again. Eventually Gerry left Variety and sometime later became publisher of The Hollywood Reporter when it was owned by Nielsen. When the Guggenheim people came in, Byrne was sidelined. He left when his contract was up, and joined up with Penske.

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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.

There was never any doubt in our minds that Nikki Finke would have the scoop about the next Oscar host, even though the gap between her EXCLUSIVE post and this morning’s official Academy announcement is the shortest yet. The selection of Seth MacFarlane also means that there will be a Saturday Night Live imprint of sorts on the February 2013 telecast.

While outgoing Academy president Tom Sherak’s attempt to have Lorne Michaels produce and Jimmy Fallon host was unsuccessful, Finke thinks today’s choice connects logically to NBC’s storied weekend franchise:

It now looks like MacFarlane’s hosting stint on Saturday Night Live’s premiere for this fall season was a tryout for telecast producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron. He did well, especially during his stand-up where he sang and did voices and looked great and was thoroughly entertaining.

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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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@NIKKlFINKE, the hilarious Twitter parody account that popped up in July, so infuriated the real Nikki Finke that she demanded Twitter remove it. The crack team at Twitter couldn’t tell the difference between the real and fake accounts, so they suspended both of them.

The faux Finke tweeter, who continues his valuable service at @Fake_NikkiFinke, has until now chosen to remain anonymous. But this past weekend he finally revealed his true identity over at The Native Angeleno. Alex Litel, a self-described “20-something freelance human being,” understands that coming out of the closet means making himself a target of Finke’s legendary wrath. He writes:

Presumably, the reason I never received any variety of legal threat through the anonymous email address associated with the account is Nikki was not entirely sure who I was. I know for a fact that she did, however, threaten people who wrote about my fake Twitter account, so I imagine there will be bizarre tirade of dubious standing in my inbox within a half-hour of this post going online.

Litel also added a phone number to the post, in case Finke wanted to leave one of her infamous screeching voicemails.

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

According to Nikki Finke tonight, Geoff Boucher – quarterback of the popular “Hero Complex” blogs and column (pictured) – is on his way out the LAT door.

Boucher has been with the paper since 1991. He would neither confirm or deny Finke’s sourced tip, but as she writes, this would if true complete a huge double-whammy loss for the paper:

Boucher’s exit follows editor Davan Maharaj’s arrival and then a new entertainment editorial team announced June 20th. That was like moving deck chairs on the Titanic given that the newspaper has become lazy and irrelevant and its showbiz ads have fallen 25% every year as studio and theater chains abandon the publication. Seriously, folks, no Boucher and no [Patrick] Goldstein = no showbiz readers.

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By all accounts, Wednesday’s “The Big Picture” column in the LA Times is Patrick Goldstein’s last.

Kevin Roderick was the first to spot the buried lede. TheWrap’s Alexander C. Kaufman tried unsuccessfully to get LA Times folks to confirm. Then, at around 9 p.m. PT tonight, Nikki Finke swooped in with the details:

My sources say Goldstein decided to take a buyout rather than work for the new leadership at the newspaper announced earlier this year. “He felt there was no more future for him there. It was obvious since all the new people think about is driving Web traffic. They’re trying to put everyone to work doing that,” my source says.

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