Britt

The former chairman and CEO of Time Warner Cable Glenn Britt lost his battle with cancer and died early this morning at his New York home. Britt was 65 and retired from Time Warner Cable at the end of December, 2013.

“Glenn left us with a legacy of innovation, integrity and inclusion,” Rob Marcus, Time Warner Cable’s current chairman & CEO, said in a statement. “We were guided for many years by his strong belief that a company must be willing to reinvent itself to be successful; his commitment to saying what you mean and doing what you say; and his conviction that a richly diverse workforce – diverse in ethnicity, culture, beliefs, perspectives, experiences and lifestyles – is necessary to best serve our diverse customers and communities.”

Although Britt’s leadership of Time Warner Cable was not always in the best interests of customers, he stood alone among major cable providers in supporting the availability of an unlimited use tier for broadband service. Britt presided over the company’s messy test of usage-based billing in the spring of 2009, but was willing to shelve the idea after customers protested. Britt’s idea of testing optional usage based plans attached to discounts helped expose the unpopularity of usage pricing after only a few thousand customers showed any interest.

Britt also complained loudly about increasing programming costs and threw a handful of networks off the lineup when they demonstrated a lack of value for money. But with so many programming contracts tied to carriage of other, less popular channels, Britt’s hands were effectively tied in dropping expensive sports and niche networks.

Despite our disagreements with Time Warner Cable, we are sorry to hear Britt has passed away and send our wishes to his family.