According to the Wall Street Journal, Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt will step down at the end of the year, with company CFO Rob Marcus the leading internal candidate to replace him. The news comes as Time Warner Cable's earnings this week highlight a continued loss of basic video customers, and a lower-than-expected growth in broadband customers.

Britt's legacy, at least among consumers and consumer advocates, has been one of tone deafness. The CEO was at the heart of Time Warner Cable's ill-fated effort to impose low caps and high overages on users, which involved insisting the Internet would face "brown outs" if the company couldn't charge more for usage, then failing utterly to seemingly learn much from the massive customer backlash that followed.

While busy pushing for more punitive rates, Time Warner Cable under Britt's leadership has been a company that has lagged behind other cable operators in terms of delivering next-generation speeds. While companies like Comcast, Cox and Charter have started offering 100 Mbps tiers and beyond (in Comcast's case 300 Mbps), Time Warner Cable has found itself barely able to offer 50 Mbps in most markets.

Time Warner Cable is refusing to comment on the report, only going so far as to state Britt is currently under contract.