Shari Redstone had reached out to Parsons in the wake of the abrupt departure of Leslie Moonves from CBS leadership ... from HBO and Time magazine to CNN and Time Warner Cable.

Richard Parsons, the Time Warner CEO from 2002-2007 when the media conglomerate was recovering from the epic fail of the AOL merger who later became to interim chairman of CBS to right its ship ...

Parsons later came out of retirement to briefly serve as CBS' chairman ... as the fundamental businesses of the old Time Warner — like publishing, the cable networks and movies — was running ...