R.I.P. Nikki Finke: An Appreciation Of A Fierce Game-Changer
deadline.comAs Hurricane Ian roared through Florida last week, I was thinking of Nikki Finke, who had moved to the state four years ago but now was living under hospice care in Boca Raton, the result of a long and involved illness that finally took her life in the early hours of Sunday at the age of 68.
Finke founded Deadline in 2006 and eventually watched it build powerful, gale-force winds as it took on Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, 100-year-old institutions, and leveled the playing field among the entertainment trades changing forever the way Hollywood would be covered in the new digital age.
Yes, Hurricane Nikki did it, forcing Variety and THR online to Deadline turf and reducing their daily print editions to weekly magazines.
Now ironically they are all run by Penske Media, which first bought Deadline in June 2009. Could we ever have imagined such a scenario just a little over a decade ago?
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