The clock is ticking for MSNBC as the liberal network’s “risky” rebrand begins to take shape.
MSNBC is set to officially change its name to “My Source News Opinion World,” or MS NOW, on Nov. 15. The drastic rebranding comes after Comcast spun off its cable assets into a new company named Versant and executives from both sides wanted to distance the progressive network from the NBC News brand.
“Rebranding a legacy media giant like MSNBC to MS NOW is a bold and risky move. It’s not just changing a name, it’s shifting decades of perception, equity and trust,” branding expert and Motto CEO Sunny Bonnell told Fox News Digital.
“Stripping away part of a name that carries decades of trust can feel, to loyal viewers, like shedding part of an identity. The challenge is to modernize without compromising meaning,” she continued. “That balance between evolution and continuity is the hardest act in branding.”
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Versant has launched a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign, and promotional videos featuring the slogan, “Same Mission. New Name,” have started to circulate. One ad features Rachel Maddow dramatically reading the preamble to the U.S. Constitution over patriotic images and current MSNBC hosts, while another features Maya Angelou reciting her “Human Family” poem.
Maddow told The New York Times she was initially “annoyed” by the name change but now says she is happy about it.
Both ads include the tagline “We the People” along with videos of everyday Americans, but not everyone is convinced that MS NOW will resonate.
“The puzzling decision to separate and put a space between ‘MS’ and ‘NOW’ makes it sound like it’s a network for people affected by multiple sclerosis. It’s the worst name change for a media business since The Tribune company renamed itself ‘TRONC.’ It’s a terrible mess,” a former NBC News executive told Fox News Digital.
Johns Hopkins University professor Michael D. Cohen, Ph.D., who has worked in public affairs and branding for more than 30 years, believes a rebrand needs to “have a customer-focused reason,” a “point” and it’s a bonus if the new name is actually an upgrade.
“This one fails on all three counts,” Cohen told Fox News Digital.
“This rebrand is all about what’s going on inside of the organization and nothing to do with its audience,” Cohen added. “Its audience didn’t want this. Its anchors didn’t want this. The corporate leaders felt they needed it, which is why it feels soulless.”
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Cohen said viewers are being told the rebrand is to reintroduce MSNBC to a wider audience, but he feels executives botched the assignment.
“The slogan, ‘Same Mission. New Name,’ undercuts it completely,” Cohen said. “If it’s the same mission, then why change the name? The original name didn’t make much sense, but at least it had a point: A rising tech company, Microsoft, decided to invest in a cable station with a name brand news organization, NBC. The partnership was the point. MS Now doesn’t make a point at all.”
Indeed, MSNBC began as a joint venture between Microsoft and NBC News, but the progressive cable channel kept the name long after the tech conglomerate divested its stake.
Cohen, the author of the recently published “Modern Political Campaigns: How Professionalism, Technology and Speed Have Revolutionized Elections,” suggested the decision to go with MS NOW could have been driven by politics.
“Microsoft isn’t involved, NBC has been freed, and ‘Now’ is obvious. Is this a ploy to make the Biden era ‘Then?’ That’s the only possible reason,” Cohen said.
“It’s just not better than MSNBC. MS NOW doesn’t make sense as a brand on any level,” Cohen said. “It’s qualitatively worse. This is the HBO Max of news network rebrands. I wouldn’t be surprised when it fails that they go back to the old brand.”
Scott Baradell, author of “Trust Signals: Brand Building in a Post-Truth World,” isn’t thrilled with the name change either.
“The rebrand will certainly hurt because the NBC brand and NBC peacock logo have been around for 100 years. It’s one of the best-known brands in news in the United States, if not the best known,” Baradell told Fox News Digital.
Baradell feels the “MS” portion of the MS NOW branding is “a very thin thread to hang onto,” but admits it does create some level of continuity with the soon-to-be former MSNBC moniker.
“Continuity is critical to maintaining the goodwill the brand has built with its audience over the years. So they’ve made the best of a bad situation,” Baradell said.
Longtime public relations guru Blair Huddy has a much more optimistic view.
“I don’t think it will hurt the brand. I think it’s an effort to save the brand since its reach is down and its audience is in the Gen X-boomer space, and they are likely looking to reach more millennials-Gen Z, and the branding better reflects that audience,” Huddy told Fox News Digital.
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The network’s final complete month known as MSNBC wasn’t a particularly strong one, although it saw a ratings boost on Tuesday when Democrats romped to decisive victories in Virginia, New Jersey and New York City, a bright spot for a party that’s had a rough year.
MSNBC averaged only 45,000 total day viewers among the advertiser-coveted demographic of adults ages 25-54 for its lowest-rated October since 1997.
During primetime, MSNBC shed 41% of total viewers and 54% of its demo audience compared to October 2024.
Brand strategist Jordan Lee of The PR Group says MS NOW will have to “ride the star power of Maddow and ‘Morning Joe’ to keep its audience from drifting” even further, as casual viewers will be confused at first.
“Whether this rebrand elevates the network or dilutes its identity will depend on how quickly viewers buy into the new name,” Lee told Fox News Digital.
A spokesperson for MS NOW did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
