As I posted last week, Richard Parsons former chairman of Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), BloggingStocks' parent, will soon be chairman of Citigroup (NYSE: C). This means that Win Bischoff, who has been Citi's chair for the last year or so, is going to find greener pastures. It also means that changes are afoot at Citi.

Parsons has been the Citi board's lead director and chairman of its nomination and governance committee. Effective February 23 he will take over as the chairman of Citi's board. Bischoff, who has been with Citi as a banker since 2000, will not stand for reelection to the board.

Regulators are looking to put some spine into Citi's board. Parsons, whose mission will be to get new board members who bring "strong, proven business judgment and financial and banking sector expertise" is likely to witness the departure of former AT&T (NYSE: T) chairman, C. Michael Armstrong. Armstrong seems to have missed some of Citi's financial cancer as head of the board's risk and audit committee between 2004 and 2008.

Parsons move can't hurt, but it feels like the cows got out of the barn two years ago. I hope he can help boost the stock.

Peter Cohan is president of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and is the author of You Can't Order Change: Lessons from Jim McNerney's Turnaround at Boeing. He owns Citi shares and has no financial interest in the other securities mentioned.

It looks like the chairman of the board at Citigroup (NYSE: C) is about to lose his position. It is a shame. He was doing such a good job. The bank's stock yesterday fell below $10 for the first time in over a decade.

According to The Wall Street Journal, "The board of Citigroup Inc. is growing increasingly dissatisfied with the financial giant's performance, and some directors are considering replacing Sir Win Bischoff as chairman." The lead candidate to take the job is former Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) chief Richard Parsons.

While the board-level change is not a sure thing, the revolt among directors seems to be aimed in the wrong direction. Vikram Pandit, who was made CEO a year ago, has effectively ruined any turnaround at the company by being slow to sell-off under-performing assets and cut expenses. The bank's shares performance has trailed that of every one of its peers.

Citi is like most large companies. The non-executive chairman has very little to do with running the company day-to-day. Firing a big company CEO after only twelve months on the jobs is unusual, but Citi's performance is so dismal that dumping the real culprit, Pandit, is a better idea than attacking the problem at the board level.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

As soon as Richard Parsons gave up his CEO role in January, remaining chairman of Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX), the smart money bet that his tenure would be short-lived. After all, he had turned over the fun part of the job to Jeffrey Bewkes.

Today, at the annual shareholder meeting, Parsons said he would likely give up his role as chairman after this year. This will mean Bewkes gets the chairman title affixed to his CEO tag. In fact, his contract stipulates being able to become chairman.

This is more than a title change. It will consolidate the decision-making power and the public's perception of who is in charge with Bewkes. It may even allow Bewkes to more expeditiously get Time Warner Cable Inc. (NYSE: TWC) out of the structure.

For Parsons, it will mean a fresh start. He has long been thought of as a candidate for Mayor in New York City. Handing the chairmanship of Time Warner over to Bewkes would allow Parsons to pursue that.

You can read a summary of the Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) earning results here; live blogging below is for the data not discussed in the press release and the Q&A session from Wall Street analysts.

Total revenues were $11.676 billion and EPS was $0.24 on a normalized basis, and free cash flow was $3.971 billion for the quarter. Time Warner listed its net debt at $35.3 billion, and it spent roughly $2.2 billion of its $5 billion for share buybacks since August 2007. The company also reaffirmed EPS targets at $1.07 with OIBDA growth in mid to high-teens from a base of $11 billion.

Oddly enough, AOL showed $635 million in subscription revenues. That is down 56% from Q3 2006, but that is still a huge number considering the access business has been sold off. So some people are still insisting on keeping their dial-up accounts even though they can get most services free besides the web access. Advertising revenues were up 13% to $540 million. Domestic ad revenues on an ex-TAC (traffic acquisition costs) basis were $330 million; unique monthly visitors were 113 million with an average ex-TAC revenue per user of $2.92.

Chairman Dick Parsons began the call, Wayne Pace is making comments after, then Jeff Bewkes will take over.

CNBC's David Faber reported yesterday about the potential break-up of Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) and had some interesting detail about just how it might play out.

Honestly break up is really the most sensible path for Time Warner since Wall Street is clearly not embracing the media conglomerate model right now. TWX could make a case that its diversification provides safety if the economy softens further, but investors aren't buying it. So far today, the stock is at $17.80, losing another 1%.

Here are a few points from Faber's report:

Time Warner Cable Inc. (NYSE: TWC): Now a portion of Time Warner's stake trades separately. But the mother ship could spin off 85% of the unit and offer TWX shareholders an opportunity to exchange some of their shares for Time Warner Cable shares.

The Financial Times on Sunday had an article discussing why parts of Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX), including at the AOL and cable operations of Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC), were slowing down.

The tone of the article was mostly negative (and the stock is down so far today -- it's currently at $18.26, down 3 cents). It discusses the slower growth in search, the lowered expectations inside AOL, and the slower cable growth. The article also points out the negative sentiment that may be building in shareholders who have seen a 17% drop this year in the share price, and also an analyst call pointing to lower target price expectations from Sanford Bernstein. Lastly, it explains that the October review is looming for the company at the next board meeting and how if the current slump continues, there will be pressure on them to push for changes.

I have written before how all of these developments and the need to please shareholders is likely to result in AOL becoming at least part of its own unit similar to what the company did with its cable operations.

If I were making odds in Vegas, odds would be that an announcement for an AOL tracking stock will be made at the end of 2007 to very early in 2008. That would allow Time Warner to maintain control and would give the company a non-cash currency so it could start buying up strategic online properties. Last week I showed how the comScore data was looking strong for the company's advertising.com unit, so perhaps the company will be looking for more integrations in that realm.

Jon Ogg is partner in 24/7 Wall St.; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) is trading up almost 1% at $22.50 this morning. It appears that the company may have a second wave of business from its box office hit Happy Feet: video games.

This morning Sumner Redstone's Midway Games (NYSE: MWY) announced that it had shipped more than 1.8 million copies of its "Happy Feet" video game, which is of course the game based on the popular dancing penguin Warner Bros.' movie. MWY shares have been dead of late and are down more than 50% from yearly highs, but shares are up 11% today as it is a niche-oriented video game developer with more exposure to individual game launches than larger video game publishers.

Even though Redstone competes via Viacom, Inc. (NYSE:VIA), it is amazing how frequently media moguls end up helping out their competitors in media time after time.

Investment strategist and TV host Jim Cramer said on his show on Thursday that he got a call from an employee of Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX) and was asked about exercising options in the next 90 days.....

Cramer said NO WAY! He's been behind Parsons for four and and a half points and you have got to stick with it, he said.

Cramer said everything is going well and thinks the stock will probably go to $28 or $30. He even noted that this is one of his favorite stocks.

It sounds like everyone at Time Warner is going to be saying Boo-Ya! from now on.

Dick Parsons, the chief executive of Time Warner, Inc. (NYSE: TWX) spoke yesterday at the Credit Suisse media and telecom conference in New York. Most interestingly, I think, he spoke about potential Internet content and ad technology deals the company could strike next year.

The most interesting point about his comment is regarding the size of deals. He said they could be basically be anything other than the really big established portals. The company is also not likely to sell its Internet access business here in the U.S. as it has in Europe. Parsons called that an annuity business.

The company believes that ad technologies are going to be key, and it has previously noted that ad insertion companies could be important. They allow for customized ad insertion based on web preferences and site usage.

Business Week also noted in an article that the company is a targeting more youthful audiences as well as ethnic minorities. The article also said it is looking for a partner that could help bolster the kids and teens portal.

Tonight on investment pro Jim Cramer's television show, "Mad Money," Cramer went over what's working in the market and what isn't. Cramer attributed today's drop to profit-taking as funds sold winners to lock in profits after the year-end for mutual funds.

Cramer then said CABLE is hot. Investors like Comcast (CMCSA), but it has already risen sharply. Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) is the one left behind that they can still buy into and one they haven't entirely missed the boat on, he argued. The Triple Play (cable, Internet, and phone) is really helping and since summer has started surprising us. Cramer realizes that TWX is in the midst of a turnaround, but says Dick Parsons' work is yielding results. Actually, Cramer said Parsons is performing a miracle.

TWX was strong across the board. He thought broadband was great, but Cramer said that AOL is a show stealer. Then Cramer brought on Dick Parsons on video. Parsons said he is pleased others believe in the company again.

Parsons went over his same three points today: 1) the turnaround in cable and the Triple Play. 2) AOL's new strategy from pay to advertising. 3) People are watching balance sheet and buybacks.

Parsons also said he is still in discussions with Icahn and the company is still looking at value. Parsons said in response to a question about a possibly spin-off ultimately of TIME: he wouldn't say never, but they are focusing on strong areas. They are moving their content to digital as well. Parsons said the publishing unit will surprise people like the cable unit did.

Cramer then asked about AOL. Parsons said Time Warner President Jeff Bewkes and AOL CEO Jon Miller deserve credit for the guts to move AOL to an ad service. Cramer said he would have thought it would be two years before seeing results, but it is already paying off.

On film, Parsons told Cramer that film is still strong. He alluded to the difficult comparison to a strong 2005.

Cramer said TWX is where CMCSA was when it was at $34. Cramer said TWX is a Buy here. TWX closed down 1.2% at $19.77 on the day on over 53 million shares traded. But TWX traded up 1% back to $19.98 after Cramer interviewed Parsons on MAD MONEY.

Overview: All in all the questions were not really that tough and what each analyst was going after seemed responded to quite well and quite rapidly. The company wouldn't get an A+ and wouldn't get a C on a conference call report card if there was such a thing. But a "B+" to an "A" would be handed out.

All in all, the questions were on individual metrics more than the overall company strategy. The answers certainly didn't indicate Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) has any plans to break up the company beyond what managers have already said.
Please pardon any misspelled names and gaps in who said what. Comments are paraphrased, rather than exact quotes.

Q&A FOR THE QUARTER:

Revenues $10.912 Billion.
Adjusted OIBDA $2.851 Billion.
Margin 26%.
Adjusted Diluted EPS $0.19.
YTD Free Cash Flow $4.022 Billion.
Conversion % of YTD Adjusted OIBDA 50%.

Diluted EPS before discontinued operations $0.33. Adjustments: $0.04 for Asset Impairment, -$0.09 tax benefit, Losses -$0.09. After those items they came up with $0.19 EPS net diluted.

Parsons sees the release really broken up into 3 major points:

1) encouraged on AOL switch to free service; usage growing;

2) Time Warner Cable is generating incredible results; Triple Play drives revenues up and churn down.

3) Capital Allocations delivering value to holders with share buybacks leading.

Dick Parsons also said TWX, "is on pace to deliver $1.00 per share in free cash flow for the year."

Time Warner Cable is going to push Triple Play initiatives next year, and they have not even begun to offer phone to old Adelphia customers.

On AOL, they are converting significant numbers to free and they are maintaining their ON AOL usage. New users are signing up faster than they expected. "Fundamentally this is exactly what we were trying to accomplish." They think AOL will grow at least the same as overall online ad spending next year.

The company has received over $4 billion in net divestitures this year, but spent over $20 billion in all on acquisitions.

So far they have spent $650 million in dividends this year and spent $13.5 billion to buy back stock at an average of $17.44 per share.

Earnings for Time Warner Inc., (NYSE: TWX) are out this morning. After some items were removed, the media giant posted $0.19 earnings per share vs $0.20 estimates. Revenues were up 7% to $10.91 billion -- better than the $11.07 billion estimated.

The company posted net income of $0.57 billion after certain items, and $0.34 EPS before the adjustments took it down to the $0.19 level. Adjusted operating income before depreciation and amortization climbed 16% to $2.85 billion. The company said some of the growth was offset by a decline in the filmed entertainment unit.

TWX continues to project growth at a rate in the "low double-digits" for operating income before depreciation and amortization.

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Dick Parsons said: "Time Warner continues to build momentum and deliver value for our shareholders. This quarter's results position the company to meet all of our full-year financial objectives."

Shares of NTL Inc, (NTLI), the UK's largest cable TV company had been up almost 6% after the Financial Times Deutschland (Germany) had reported that Time Warner Inc's (NYSE: TWX) CEO Richard Parsons had said NTL was on the radar.

The paper noted that he had said Time Warner was looking for new potential deals where carriers were undervalued -- and that was when he noted NTL as being one of those companies.

It is being stated in the press today that the remarks were taken out of context, according to a Time Warner spokesman. But no official word has been seen out of the company. Reuters also ran an article dated yesterday saying that Parsons did not rule out an acquisition of cable assets in Europe. That is even though the infrastructure is behind.

He told reporters, "But cable companies are now set to realise their value down the road... We look at everything. It's a big issue. Cable will win in the U.S. but maybe not outside the U.S. since the infrastructure is not there. We look, we evaluate on price, you never know."

Parsons also noted on the Google purchase of YouTube, "Some of these sites are working, most are not. Whether it will be a value-adding asset remains to be seen. But note the acquirer. For us and traditional media companies this would be a tough, tough price. But for Google it's in their sweetspot."

NTL shares (NTLI) are now up 3% at $25.95, down intraday highs of $26.63. NTLI's 52-week trading range is $19.99 to $31.00 and it's ADR equivalent market cap is listed as $7.33 billion.

Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) fell victim today to an analyst downgrade from J.P. Morgan. The analyst went from an "overweight" to a "neutral" rating and offered a fair value price range of $15.70 to $18.89. The stock closed down 2%, or $0.39, at $18.20.

For longer-term investors, this is actually good news, even if it is hard hearing that a 2% drop is "good" for you. The stock had been getting consistent volume increases and had been rising steadily until late in the day yesterday. It was showing some strong over-bought readings for the chartists/technicians.

Today the company issued some overall feel-good comments from Chairman & CEO Dick Parsons on CNBC's Power Lunch segment about the overall operations and the economy, although there were not any formal statements made that you could really apply to any single unit.

Yesterday saw over 59 million shares traded and the stock closed down $0.01 on the day. Today we had the stock close down $0.39, or 2% at $18.20 on 48.5 million shares. That translates to a classic example of a breather on what is actually somewhat light relative trading volume for the stock during a week where volume has been so much higher. The volume was 59.7 million, 65.8 million, and 56.2 million for the last three days in reverse order.

TWX shares closed at $17.73 last Friday, so this drop today does not reflect a classical omen of bad things to come. This 48.5 million shares was double the average of the last three months, but far under the last three days.

The options volume has been very tame the last two days. You wouldn't have even known there was an options market if you looked at the contract volumes of the October and November expirations. One person is probably a little happy about the drop, and that would be whoever bought those 30,000+ Jan 07 $17.50 puts yesterday.