Glenn Britt

Glenn Britt, the former CEO of Time Warner Cable, has died after a long battle with cancer. Britt, who battled melanoma in 2008, announced last October that his cancer had recurred.

Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt told employees on Tuesday that his cancer has returned but that he will work until his planned retirement at the end of the year.

Chairman-CEO Glenn Britt will be succeeded  at the end of the year by President-COO Robert Marcus. Marcus, 48 joined Time Warner Inc. in 1998 and moved to TWC in 2005. He was named chief financial officer in 2008. Marcus worked side by side with Britt during TWC’s 2009 spin-off from Time Warner Inc.

The anti-bundling bill by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) may be going nowhere, but Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt says he supports the idea of having smaller television packages. Britt told an audience at the Cable Show in Washington that cable TV packages are becoming too expensive for many low-income households, including recent college graduates struggling to find work.

Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt has been talking with other cable providers about making a joint bid for the Web-TV hub. Hulu has hired Guggenheim Partners to explore a sale, among other options, as owners mull its future. Cable companies would make logical buyers. With consumption of Internet video on the rise, the cable industry is feeling the heat from Web streaming services such as Hulu, Netflix and Amazon that offer a range of TV shows and movies.

Time Warner Cable joins a growing chorus of companies that are beginning to chip away at long-held business relationships with major broadcast television networks. CEO Glenn Britt: “What Aereo is doing to bring broadcast signals to its customers is interesting. If it is found legal, we could conceivably use similar technology,” he says.

Glenn Britt, CEO of Time Warner Cable since 2001, plans to leave the post when his contract expires at the end of the year according to the Wall Street Journal. Rob Marcus, the company’s president-CEO, is said to be the most likely choice to succeed him. WSJ subscribers can read the story here.

Few cable companies have been as vocal about the rising costs of sports programming as Time Warner Cable. But its executives’ critical words don’t match up with Time Warner Cable’s actions. As of late, few cable companies have been as instrumental in driving up sports costs as Time Warner Cable.

Time Warner Cable boss Glenn Britt’s message to low-rated cable networks is simple: You’ll get nothing, and like it. Britt — who is looking to rein in soaring programming costs by culling channels with smaller audiences — has started telling some programmers that they can either go dark or get no fee at all in return for continued distribution on his service.

Facing a heated battle with MSG sports network over rising rates, Time Warner Cable Inc. CEO Glenn Britt said sports channels should be sold separately from the main cable TV package of channels.

While the FCC’s desire to get back TV spectrum from stations is grabbing a lot of attention, there’s another issue that shouldn’t fall under the industry’s radar. The attempt by cable and satellite operators to get the commission to change the retransmission consent rules to decrease the broadcasters’ leverage. This second revenue stream is vital and is growing more important each year. This is a dangerous proceeding. If broadcasters don’t pay enough attention, all their spread sheets showing steadily rising retrans revenue over the next decade could suddenly become moot.