Mca Inc

MCA Inc. is expected to name former Viacom Inc. Chief Executive Frank J. Biondi Jr. today as its chairman and chief executive, filling the last major gap in the entertainment company's management ranks following its acquisition last year by spirits giant Seagram Co., industry sources said. Biondi, 51, will fill the position left vacant by Hollywood legend Lew Wasserman, who became chairman emeritus after Seagram paid $5.7 billion for 80% of MCA in June.

The name MCA Inc. largely disappeared Monday from the Hollywood landscape. In a move expected for some time, Seagram Co., the beverage and spirits giant that owns the entertainment company, changed the name of the corporate parent to Universal Studios Inc. The move reflects in part Hollywood's current obsession with "brands" and developing name identities that can be attached to a variety of entertainment products marketed globally.

Addressing an audience of often skeptical neighbors, MCA Inc. has embarked on a public relations campaign for its $3-billion proposal to transform the firm's Cahuenga Pass property into a 24-hour resort and entertainment complex.

Just when it looked as if things couldn't get more tumultuous at MCA Inc., now come reports that parent Matsushita Electric Industrial may actively be looking to sell part, or even all, of its entertainment conglomerate. The Wall Street Journal in Friday's editions listed Seagram Co., Germany's Bertelsmann, PolyGram and cable giant Tele-Communications Inc. as possible suitors for the company, which the Japanese electronics giant bought for $6.6 billion back in 1990.

Former Creative Artists Agency President Ron Meyer, 50, today will spend his first day as president of MCA Inc. after having been a high-powered talent agent for three decades. The buzz in Hollywood continues to swirl around Meyer's former home as well as his new abode. Industry watchers want to know what will happen at CAA in the wake of his departure.

The Wasserman family is back in the music business. Casey Wasserman, 29, grandson of legendary MCA Inc. Chairman Lew Wasserman, is branching into artist representation this week, hiring a top music manager with a roster of clients including rock bands Coldplay and Rancid. Wasserman has hired manager Dave Holmes away from Nettwerk Management, home to such acts as Avril Lavigne and Sum 41.

Like a movie that gets remade every few years, one of Hollywood's most familiar corporate plots is being recycled yet again. An outsider buys a studio, vows to tame a notoriously unruly business, then proceeds to have his lunch eaten. It happened to such huge companies as Coca-Cola Inc., Japanese electronics conglomerates Sony Corp. and Matsushita and insurance company Transamerica. Now, it's spirits giant Seagram Co.'s turn.

Viacom Inc. has filed an appeal to a judge's order that it dissolve its partnership with Seagram Co.'s MCA unit that produces the USA Network cable television channel. New York-based Viacom contends it has not violated joint-venture agreements with MCA over the profitable channel, as a Delaware judge ruled last month. The appeal comes a week before a court-mandated deadline for the two communications companies to file separate plans to dispose of the channel.

Several dozen homeowners, business leaders and planning officials toured Universal Studios Tuesday in a show-and-tell session for MCA's proposed 25-year, $2-billion expansion project. The two-hour tour--which began at CityWalk, wound its way through the back lots and sound studios before ending amid the flames and high decibels of the Waterworld attraction--was designed to give members of the Los Angeles Regional Planning Commission the lay of the land.