Glenn Britt to Retire as Time Warner Cable Chief

Time Warner Cable, the country’s second-biggest cable company after Comcast, said that Glenn Britt, its chief executive since 2001, will retire at the end of the year, capping several years of succession discussions and months of public talk about his expected departure. Britt, 64, will be replaced by Rob Marcus, who at 48 represents generational change both for the company and the broader industry.

Marcus has been in line for the top job since 2010, when he was named president and chief operating officer. Marcus will take over a company that has been transformed in the 12 years Britt has been in charge. Once known just for piping cable television into homes, Time Warner Cable now considers its main product to be broadband, and it is trying hard to sign up businesses to offset the residences that have switched to DirecTV or Verizon FiOS. Marcus said in an interview that his priorities would include residential subscriptions (“We can do better,” he said, after a first quarter of the year that showed a continued decline in television subscribers and a slowdown in growth in broadband subscribers), corporate culture and overall customer service.