MSNBC has set a date for its new name.
Starting Nov. 15, the progressive-leaning cable news channel will be called MS NOW — an acronym for My Source, News, Opinion and World. The famous NBC peacock will no longer be part of the channel’s logo.
Viewers started seeing spots promoting the new moniker on Monday, with the tagline “Same mission, New name.” A larger marketing push will happen in the coming weeks according to a memo from MSNBC President Rebecca Kutler that was obtained by The Times.
The rebranding coincides with parent company Comcast’s spinoff of its NBCUniversal cable channels into Versant, a new company. CNBC, USA Network, Golf Channel, Oxygen, SyFy and E! are also part of the entity.
Comcast is unloading the channels because it believes the mature outlets face a bleak future due to pay TV cord-cutting and are an albatross weighing down its stock price. Comcast Chief Executive Brian Roberts will own 33% of the shares in Versant, which will trade as a public company under the symbol VSNT on the NASDAQ.
While the spinoff has been in the works for months, MSNBC viewers have heard little about it on the air until now. The network held a fan festival at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York earlier this month and all of the signage used the MSNBC logo. The name change was referred to several times by the personalities who appeared on stage.
The change required MSNBC to unwind its news operation from NBC News, which supplied correspondents to the channel. A number of NBC News correspondents, including Jacob Soboroff and Ken Dilanian, chose to work for Versant.
The current line-up of MSNBC opinion hosts — including Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Nicolle Wallace, Ari Melber, Rachel Maddow, Jen Psaki and Lawrence O’Donnell — will all make the transition to MS NOW.
Although MSNBC employees were initially told the network’s name would be retained, NBCUniversal decided it did not want its brand attached to a network it did not control.
Versant Chief Executive Mark Lazarus encouraged his staff to embrace the change in spite of the challenges of marketing a new brand in a highly fragmented media landscape.
“This gives us the opportunity to chart our own path forward, create distinct brand identities, and establish an independent news organization following the spin,” Lazarus wrote in an August memo.
MSNBC has its own Washington bureau, which has already broken a number of stories in recent weeks, including the indictments of former FBI Director James Comey and former national security advisor John Bolton.
MSNBC also has a multiyear agreement with U.K.-based Sky News to provide international coverage.
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