MSNBC suddenly announced a name change Monday morning, saying it will be called My Source News Opinion World (MS NOW) following the impending spinoff from its parent company Comcast. That change comes as an embarrassment to the left-wing network—though NBCUniversal executives said the move was meant to ease “brand confusion,” CNBC will keep its name, suggesting NBC is aiming to create unique separation between itself and MSNBC.
MSNBC will also be stripped of the iconic peacock logo—one of the most widely recognized logos in the world.
MSNBC staffers learned of the change Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported. The rebrand will officially take place later this year, when MSNBC and other cable networks under the NBC umbrella—including CNBC, USA, and E!—spin off from their parent company Comcast.
The shocking name change—MSNBC has had its name and the peacock logo since it launched in 1996—was a surprise. The Journal reports that Mark Lazarus—who will serve as chief executive of MSNBC’s new parent company Versant—initially assured rattled staff the name would remain the same. But in a new interview, Lazarus told the Journal that later in the process, as the Journal described his remarks, “NBCUniversal executives said that they preferred to keep the NBC brand themselves.” Lazarus said they came to that decision after they learned MSNBC planned to “include both news and opinion” and NBC executives wanted to avoid “brand confusion.”
The NBC executives, however, did not make the same demand of CNBC, which will keep its name and will only need to unveil a new logo—despite also covering news.
MSNBC president Rebecca Kutler, a former CNN executive who replaced Rashida Jones in January, said she shared MSNBC’s new MS NOW branding with a limited group of staffers before the public rollout. Those staffers voiced “a little trepidation” before their “enthusiasm grew,” the Journal reported.
Outside of MSNBC, early reactions to the new name reflect significant trepidation and not much enthusiasm. A Variety piece on the change quoted social media users who mocked the new branding. “Looks like it belongs on a discount computer from 1998, not a serious news network,” one said of the MS NOW logo. “Sounds like a medical issue,” another wrote of the name.
A Hollywood Reporter piece on the change—headlined, “Farewell, MSNBC. Hello, ‘My Source for News, Opinion, and the World.’ Wait, What?”—featured similarly confused commentary from editors Erik Hayden and Tony Maglio.
“My first read went something like this: ‘Um, what’s-that-now?'” said Maglio. “If you want your own brand … just start over. ‘MS NOW’ to me reads like it’s a random Microsoft application I’d uninstall from my PC when storage space got tight.” Hayden, meanwhile, suggested CNBC is “seen as a safer, more durable brand” given it was able to keep the “NBC” moniker.
MSNBC’s original name came about because the network debuted in 1996 as a joint venture between NBC and Microsoft. At the time, MSNBC was not a liberal opinion channel, and rather was supposed to be a 24-hour news channel that was in tune with the digital revolution which had just begun. When the software giant sold its stake years later, Microsoft agreed to let MSNBC keep the “MS” in its name.
As a result, the network’s retention of the “MS” acronym for its new name puzzled media experts.
“The MS thing is so weird,” said Maglio. “Microsoft has had exactly zero ties to MSNBC since 2012 (and from the TV channel, since 2005). Back then, you wouldn’t want to change a web address or an established channel/brand name. But now, why not?”
Hayden agreed: “Also, this wasn’t a decision made from a position of strength,” he said. “I doubt that, were it not to be cleaved off from Comcast, that MSNBC executives would like to undertake a rebrand that nearly erases its entire name. I can’t think of a single major news organization that has undergone that sort of name change.”
MSNBC has sought to portray itself and new parent company Versant as being in expansion mode. MSNBC is building its own news gathering operation. But the compulsory name may signify what’s really in store for NBCUniversal’s soon-to-be former cable networks: aggressive cost-cutting and a possible sale of Versant—as a whole or in pieces—to private equity firms who will wring as much profit as possible out of the declining assets before their death.
Indeed, the spinoffs of NBCUniversal’s cable channels—save for Bravo—were a result of the still-profitable but declining cable assets dragging down Comcast’s stock price.
It’s unclear how the new name change will impact the branding behind MSNBC Live ’25, an upcoming “live community event” in which the network’s anchors will address fans during a pair of live sessions scheduled to take place at the Manhattan Center’s Hammerstein Ballroom in October. The network has struggled to sell tickets for that event, and “insiders say the network is sweating,” entertainment journalist Rob Shuter reported on Saturday.
“They thought this would be gone in hours,” one source told Shuter. “Right now, it’s shaping up to be a disaster.”
“There’s time to turn it around, but at this pace, they could lose money,” a second insider said. “If this were a J.Lo concert, it’d already be canceled.” A third source suggested the network “may have to paper the house to avoid empty seats on camera.”
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