Turner Gives More Say to His Aides

Ted Turner has quietly relinquished some of the day-to-day authority over his Atlanta-based broadcasting and cable-TV empire to a five-man committee of company executives.

The restructuring of the management of Turner Broadcasting Systems Inc. comes after more than a year of heavy financial losses and rapid growth at the company, including expansion of Cable News Network, the acquisition of the MGM film library in Los Angeles and this summer’s money-losing Goodwill Games from Moscow.

The company has grown “too big to manage and operate the way it has been” in the past, Arthur Sando, vice president for corporate affairs, said Monday.

Sando said Turner, who will be 48 next month, will retain the titles of chairman and president of his company while “not quite as many people are going to be reporting directly” to him in the new corporate structure. Sando said the new structure had existed on an “informal” basis for some time and that the executive committee assumed its new official duties a month ago.

Turner will “still have final authority,” Sando said. “He’s not turning over rule of the company. He’s still in charge.”

Turner owns 81% of the publicly traded but closely held stock of Turner Broadcasting.

Members of the new executive committee are Robert Wussler, executive vice president; William Bevins, vice president for finance; Jack Petrik, vice president for television programming; Gerald Hogan, vice president for broadcasting sales, and Terrence McGuirk, vice president for special projects.