As rebrands go, it’s not quite New Coke, but it’s close.
Launched in 1996, MSNBC is the liberal-leaning network that is home to either heroes or villains like Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews and the “Morning Joe” crew (how you regard them is almost wholly related to your political beliefs). In the same way that conservative viewers can turn to Fox News for reliably conservative commentary from its biggest names, liberal viewers turn to MSNBC.
They are opposite sides of the media coin, though Fox News enjoys a much larger audience. To put it another way, if you want to see overwhelmingly positive coverage of Donald Trump, tune in to Fox News. If you want to see overwhelmingly negative coverage of Trump, tune in to MSNBC.
When does MSNBC change its name?
Well, not after Nov. 15. That’s when MSNBC becomes MS NOW.
Seriously. Programming on the network will remain the same, but that’s the new name. It’s lucky for the network that the change doesn’t happen on April 1.
And the NBC peacock logo will be gone.
The rebrand, which the New York Times reports cost about $20 million, is a result of Comcast, the company that owns NBC and MSNBC, spinning off MSNBC and other networks from NBC News and NBCUniversal. The new company will be called Versant.
So NBC News and MSNBC will become separate companies, no longer sharing staff on big nights. Don’t expect any election-night (or any other time) crossovers from on-air talent anymore. “This gives us the freedom to chart our own path forward, and we’re excited about where it’s headed,” the network said in a statement.
The separation meant some journalists stuck with MSNBC, some went to NBC. For instance, Steve Kornacki, the khaki-clad king of election-night big-board analysis, jumped ship from MSNBC to NBC; in fact he appeared on NBC’s coverage of the 2025 election on Tuesday, Nov. 4.
Vaughn Hillyard, an Arizona State University graduate who served as a White House correspondent for NBC News, will be MS NOW’s senior White House correspondent. (Hillyard is one of the many NBC News reporters who showed up on MSNBC from time to time.)
What does MS Now stand for?
The running gag on social media when the name change was announced in August was that MS NOW sounds like a multiple sclerosis charity. But it’s actually an acronym for “My Source News Opinion World.” Really rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?
Although people may not remember it, MSNBC actually gets its name from Microsoft and NBC. (The newfangled internet intrigued a lot of big-media companies at the time. See Time Warner AOL if you want the story of a real disaster.) So the MS in the name goes from Microsoft to My Source.
‘Same Mission. New Name’? Does anyone care?
For all the jokes about the new name, the network, as you might expect, is taking the change seriously. Very seriously, with an ad campaign called “Same Mission. New Name.” One ad for MS NOW shows stars of the future-former MSNBC interspersed with Americans doing various American things, while Maya Angelou reads from her poem “Human Family.” Another shows similar footage while Maddow, who has said she didn’t like the name change but has come around on it, reads, no joke, the preamble to the U.S. Constitution.
Whether the name change will have any impact on viewership or audience size is a real question. Do people pay any attention to network names anymore, or just visit their favorites without knowing or caring what the company is called? Younger viewers ― the holy grail for all networks ― certainly don’t have the brand loyalty and recognition that older viewers have.
It’s not like never-Trumpers are going to accidentally turn on Sean Hannity’s show because they don’t see MSNBC on their menu anymore, or that a MAGA obsessive will stumble onto Rachel Maddow’s show, wondering what this MS NOW thing is. But it is always a risk to abandon a well-known identity.
Will the rebrand work, or fail? Stay tuned. That’s what MS NOW is counting on.
