Company Town : Seagram Officially Takes MCA Reins From Matsushita : Studios: But the day is dominated by news that the chief candidate for the top job turned down the offer.

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. officially handed over the keys of MCA Inc. to their new owner Monday morning, in what has become for Seagram Co. a highly publicized if somewhat fitful entrance into the entertainment business.

Edgar Bronfman Jr., chief executive of the Montreal-based beverage company, had hoped to announce a new management team shortly after closing the $5.7-billion purchase of 80% of MCA. Instead, the news dominating Bronfman’s first day in charge was about the man who did not take the job.

Bronfman’s first choice, Michael S. Ovitz, turned down what is believed to have been one of the richest compensation packages in Hollywood history, leaving Bronfman with no immediate runner-up, with many MCA executives offended by the Ovitz negotiations and with no end to continuing rumors about who will run the $5-billion-a-year enterprise.

“Bronfman must be really embarrassed,” one high-placed MCA insider said.

Still, most executives at MCA, many of whom greatly respect Bronfman for rescuing the company from the direction of Matsushita, said Ovitz is the one who should be embarrassed and that Bronfman has already proven himself to be smart and likable.

Bronfman has scheduled a meeting today with about 15 of MCA’s most senior executives to discuss the future, sources said, adding that he also wants to address speculation in the news media that he planned to clean house, with Ovitz and as many as 20 other key people at the powerful Creative Artists Agency taking the top spots at MCA in a deal that would have cost Seagram at least $300 million.

Some top MCA executives are privately celebrating the collapse of the Ovitz deal, while pondering a new round of rumors that had Terry Semel, chairman and co-chief executive of Warner Bros., taking the top MCA job.

“Lots of people over here were offended at the whole notion that Ovitz was the salvation of MCA--that the company somehow needed a cadre of CAA people to make it right,” a senior MCA executive said.

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Some at MCA hoped that Bronfman might take a more measured approach to filling the top job by asking the veteran team of Lew R. Wasserman and Sidney J. Sheinberg to stay on as chairman and president after their contracts expire at the end of the year. “That would be the most logical choice, while he learns the business and could then make a more thoughtful decision,” said one MCA source.

However, Sheinberg and Wasserman were unhappy with Bronfman’s effort to lure Ovitz. Sheinberg is also ready for a new role and is negotiating a lucrative production deal with MCA.

Several Wall Street investors hoped that Ovitz and Bronfman would come to an agreement, especially since the only other candidate for the job seems to be Semel, who is bound by a five-year contract with Warner Bros. that is only 6 months old.

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“It cost Sony $700 million to buy [Peter] Guber and [John] Peters out of a Time Warner contract, so I don’t think there is a No. 2,” said one investor. “And there is no No. 3.”

Seagram stock fell 50 cents to $30 on Monday, possibly in reaction to the breakdown of the Ovitz negotiation.

Speculation grew so intense that Semel might be tapped that Time Warner released a statement Monday saying he had a contract and “is looking forward to enjoying yet another record-breaking year” at Warner Bros.

That could mean a months-long delay in a much-needed reinvigoration of MCA’s businesses, according to analysts. Univeral Pictures has been heavily dependent on filmmaker Steven Spielberg for its success, with few hits of its own. Spielberg has propped up the movie division profit with such offerings as “Jurassic Park,” “Schindler’s List,” “The Flintstones” and “Casper.”

Yet MCA’s movie business still makes money, according to people familiar with the studio, which, as a unit of Matsushita, did not break out numbers. Television production is not as healthy.

According to a financial statement released Monday by Seagram, filmed entertainment, which includes television and movie production, contributed $134 million to MCA’s $533 million in income last year. But people familiar with the company said the television unit lost about $50 million.

For instance, in the latest fall schedule announcements, Universal Television fared poorly against competitors. “Law and Order” and “New York Undercover” were renewed, but die-hards such as “Coach” and “Murder, She Wrote” are probably in their last year, with no blockbuster replacements on the horizons. Only one new show from Universal, “American Gothic,” was picked up, by CBS. By comparison, Warner Bros. Television had eight new shows picked up, joining 12 that were renewed.

And MCA has been the least aggressive among the studios in positioning itself for the near future, when federal regulations prohibiting the networks from profiting from television production are eliminated, perhaps as early as this fall. Those changes have prompted companies with studios. such as Time Warner and Viacom (owner of Paramount Pictures), to start networks from scratch.

It is why Wasserman and Sheinberg had wanted to pursue, with ITT Corp., a bid for CBS, only to be told to back off by the Japanese owners.

And that is one reason why analysts believe Bronfman will act quickly.

“He can’t have an ill-defined executive structure for long,” said David Londoner of Wertheim Schroeder. “You have to move quickly in a creative business.”

Many analysts and executives believe Bronfman has ambitious plans to remake MCA into a cutting-edge entertainment conglomerate, equipped with cable, new media and probably even a network.