MSNBC is changing its name to MS NOW, which does not stand for Maddow Supplies Nightly Opinionated Wisdom—but rather My Source for News, Opinion, and the World. The rebrand, announced yesterday, aims to create distance between the liberal news network—home to Rachel Maddow, Ari Melber, and Nicole Wallace—and NBC Universal, which owns NBC, amid an ongoing corporate divorce. It’s also dropping NBC’s iconic peacock logo.
The name change comes as part of the process that started last November of spinning off MSNBC and other NBCU cable network properties, including the Golf Channel, E!, and CNBC, into a new company called Versant. While none of the other channels will be changing their names, NBC announced that all the spun-out channels will also shed the peacock logo.
Why NOW? MSNBC, which got its original name from a now-defunct partnership between NBC and Microsoft, has been on a quest to forge an independent identity as its opinion journalism with a progressive slant has created headaches for NBC, which has maintained a more neutral editorial tone. Dropping NBC from the name is meant to avoid “brand confusion,” according to the soon-to-be Versant CEO Mark Lazarus.
Not just a name change
Like an adult in their early 20s finally moving from their parents’ house, MSNBC is in the process of becoming operationally self-sufficient as it separates from its corporate cousin, NBC.
- The two networks are moving away from sharing on-air talent, and MSNBC has been on a hiring spree to beef up its newsgathering prowess so it doesn’t have to rely on NBC for scoops.
- Aside from new-hire editors and producers, it recently brought on several NBC News personalities, including correspondents Jacob Soboroff and Vaughn Hillyard, as well as political reporters from Politico and the Washington Post.
Big picture: Though MSNBC does well in the nightly eyeballs game—surpassing CNN to receive the second-highest primetime ratings among cable news channels—it lags behind Fox News, which had more than double the primetime viewers last quarter, according to Nielsen Live+SD data.—SK