By Owen Reyes · Republished 2026-05-16 · Originally reported by Richard Horgan on FishbowlLA, August 2012
In mid-August 2012, FishbowlLA tracked a Nikki Finke “TOLDJA!” on the question of who would host the 2013 Academy Awards. An LA Times report had Jimmy Fallon in talks to host with Lorne Michaels producing.
Then
Nikki Finke had built Deadline.com substantially around her scoop-cadence on entertainment-industry news. The “TOLDJA!” framing was her trademark device for claiming a scoop had been validated.
The eventual answer turned out differently — Seth MacFarlane hosted the 2013 ceremony, with Craig Zadan and Neil Meron producing.
Now
Nikki Finke left Deadline in 2013 and died in October 2022 at 68. Jimmy Fallon took over NBC’s Tonight Show in February 2014 — the role the August 2012 Oscar-host talks had been a parallel-track development for.
The 2012 piece reads now as a small documented moment of the Finke-era Deadline scoop-cadence — captured before her 2013 departure substantially changed the trade-press landscape she had dominated.
Original report archived on the Wayback Machine.