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.
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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.
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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.
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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.”
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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.
NBC News and MSNBC—which operate jointly, share news gathering costs, back office functions—have long been at odds over branding, as MSNBC went further left and NBC News sought to retain the appearance of being objective. In 2012, NBC News forced the news division’s website, MSNBC.com, to rebrand as NBCNEWS.com, despite the site’s enormous traffic compared to the digital operations of broadcast rivals CBS and ABC. The website weathered the name change.
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“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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