In a TV show guys, jeez. She's not that hard-up. Also today: pilot casting news from Patton Oswalt and others, the Footloose remake keeps hitting snags, and the original Ren lands a movie.

In your counterfeit Friday media column: Rupert Murdoch launches the first volley in the new paywall wars, ABC News employees face a buyout deadline, Forbes loses a key editor, and Variety throws a hissyfit.

Does reclusive Hollywood scoopstress Nikki Finke want out of her multimillion dollar^* deal with Mail.com? She says she recently turned down an offer from the Hollywood Reporter to lead the flailing trade. Her archnemesis Sharon Waxman hears they're still talking.

Hollywood blog impresaria Nikki Finke is infallible, because she rewrites her copy to suit the facts as they emerge. It's a neat trick. Today we can prove that she also spikes comments that dispute her site's reporting.

We here at Gawker were very saddened to learn today that our arch-nemesis Nikki Finke's Deadline.com beat us in traffic last month. Our boss is gonna kill us! Lucky for us, it's not true. At all.

HBO is developing a comedy about "a powerful female online showbiz journalist with a no-holds-barred style." We called our pal Nikki to ask if it's about her. It was, as always, a delightful conversation.

It'd appear that The Hollywood Hardass™ herself, Deadline Hollywood Daily's Nikki Finke, has trademarked one of her very loud, angry catchphrases. Can you guess which one? And can you guess what practice Ms. Finke has rallied against in the past?

Star Variety reporter Mike Fleming—the scoop outlet of choice for movie types—is leaving to run Deadline/New York, the NYC outpost of Nikki Finke's operation. Nikki made another hire in London. Good luck, trades! [Thompson on Hollywood]

Now that Leno's move back to 11:30 is official, all eyes are Conan: Will he suck it up and helm the "Tonight Show" at midnight or make the move to another network? Variety says he is 'not happy'. Duh.

O HAI HOMELESS PPL! So sad and homeless. : ( Instead of taking our BigDick Hollywood Money to subsidize programs moving them into jobs/homes, we'll move $100 under-the-table for them to hold signs of our shitty movies! "Genius!" : ) [DHD]

Today Nikki Finke put out a press release claiming that her Hollywood gossip site Deadline.com attracts a bigger audience than Variety and The Hollywood Reporter combined. We're dubious but were going to stay quiet. But nothing about Finke's ever simple.

Yes, that's right: nobody's won the $1,000 prize for a Nikki Finke photo yet.

Nikki Finke OWNS the Oprah Winfrey story. She broke the news that Winfrey would leave the show three weeks ago. And she got the transcript of Oprah's announcement up on her site bright and early this morning. By stealing it.

Changing the ownership of two of show biz's major trade journals will either change everything, or change nothing at all. In Hollywood, you're always safe betting on the latter

Dumenco: Nikki Finke offers Hollywood the thrill "of seeing a spun reporter do as told."

Part of Deadline Hollywood blogger Nikki Finke's pose as the only real journalist in Hollywood is her claim that everyone else just conveys spin, while she offers the truth. But her "truth" has a habit of changing.

Nikki Finke officially crosses the Forgetting Who She Is Rubicon in one groundbreaking headline.

As the box office tea leaves are sifted, many in Hollywood are searching for a way to take the glory away from Spike Jonze, but whatever, your feelings about the hipster icon, we all bow before an opening weekend victory.

Many in Hollywood media wondered how Nikki Finke would play up or ignore yesterday's much heralded release of "The Brown List" of Most and Least Liked Execs compiled by the Hollywood Temp Diaries.

Journalism about Nikki Finke has become a cottage industry. Each new profile provokes a flurry of reviews, debunkers and all-around Big Media Disappointment.