\n<\/p>\n
\u201cM<\/span>S NOW: don\u2019t worry, you\u2019ll get used to it,\u201d that\u2019s how Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski put it on 11 October during an onstage appearance at MSNBC\u2019s annual live event for superfans in New York City.<\/p>\n The event, which mostly filled up Manhattan\u2019s Hammerstein Ballroom with a group of eager power-viewers gawking to see their favorite cable news hosts, was the network\u2019s last as MSNBC.<\/p>\n Starting Saturday, the US\u2019s biggest liberal-leaning network \u2013 which has been known as MSNBC since its launch in 1996 \u2013 will officially become known as MS NOW. The somewhat forced acronym stands for My Source for News, Opinion, and the World. The \u201cMS\u201d comes from the network\u2019s original partnership with Microsoft back in the 1990s, which ended more than a decade ago. The network president, Rebecca Kutler, told the Guardian last week that she felt \u201cvery strongly\u201d about keeping the letters because of the history of the brand and because it\u2019s how many people refer to the channel anyway.<\/p>\n The change was forced on the network by its parent company, NBCUniversal, which is breaking off MSNBC along with a few other cable networks into a new, separate company called Versant. MSNBC\/MS Now is trying to make the best of it, using it as an opportunity to promote the brand anew as a source of patriotic, trustworthy news and analysis.<\/p>\n <\/span>The MSNBC TV anchor Mika Brzezinski, co-host of the show Morning Joe, in 2017. <\/span> Photograph: Steven Senne\/AP<\/p>\n The change comes at a particularly challenging time for television networks, which are weathering declines in subscription fees as viewers increasingly drop pricey cable packages for cheaper streaming options.<\/p>\n At the live event, Brzezinski \u2013 like many MSNBC stars who have sat recently for interviews \u2013 assured the crowd that she was happy with the change. \u201cMS Now. I love it,\u201d she said. \u201cWe get to stay in 30 Rock, right?\u201d her husband and co-anchor Joe Scarborough jokingly asked. Sadly not \u2013 the network has moved from New York\u2019s most famous media hub over to a far less glamorous office building in Times Square that once housed the New York Times.<\/p>\n While Brzezinski got a few laughs with a riff about how she was trying to get used to the change in advance (\u201cIt\u2019s like I\u2019m 58 but I say I\u2019m 60 \u2013 I like to get ahead of things,\u201d she joked) few in the crowd seemed to be aware of the new name.<\/p>\n Probably sensing this, the network recently invested $20m in a national advertising campaign to bring viewers up to speed on the name change \u2013 and maybe even get them a little excited about it. On 4 November, election night, the network aired two 60-second ads \u2013 one featured star host Rachel Maddow reading the preamble to the constitution while patriotic imagery and vignettes from US history flashed across the screen, and the other Maya Angelou\u2019s speech at the United Nations in 1996.<\/p>\n <\/span>MS NOW\u2019s studio. <\/span> Photograph: MS NOW\/Ralph Bavaro<\/p>\n Both ads, which highlighted the network\u2019s biggest stars, ended with the same message: \u201cMS NOW. Same Mission. New name.\u201d<\/p>\n Scarborough also conveyed comfort with the name change, telling the crowd at the fan fest: \u201cIf you do a good job, and you have decent lighting, and you can talk to people, and they want to hear your take, they want to hear the story \u2013 it doesn\u2019t matter what we call the network, it doesn\u2019t matter where we film it.\u201d<\/p>\n But names do matter, particularly when they have defined a brand for decades. \u201cIt is a big deal to rebrand a company after 30 years. We understand that,\u201d Kutler said at an event for reporters last week. \u201cWe understand it is a challenge, and we\u2019re here for it.\u201d<\/p>\n One of her biggest stars, prime-time host and former White House press secretary Jen Psaki, acknowledged that she initially viewed the name change as a \u201cheadache\u201d for branding purposes. But, she said at the same event, she came to realize that the network\u2019s viewers care more about their favorite hosts than the network\u2019s name. \u201cThere\u2019s a commitment and dedication to certain faces who are part of the brand that I think people seek them out wherever they may be,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd that made me feel better.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Jen Psaki, former White House press secretary, appears on Meet the Press in Washington DC on 25 September 2022. <\/span> Photograph: NBC\/William B. Plowman\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Quizzed about the change in an online group for MSNBC superfans, most said they were fine with the channel\u2019s new name \u2013 though there was some confusion about how to access it and whether it would remain on the same dial. \u201cAs long as the journalists, commentators, writers, etc, remain and are free to present news without interference, they can call it anything they want,\u201d one fan said.<\/p>\n One of the network\u2019s former top stars, Joy Reid, is less sure. In a wide-ranging interview with the Guardian recently, she cited her past experience working as an analyst for a beverage company. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019ll stop people from watching their favorite hosts,\u201d she said. \u201cBut as an overall marketing exercise, I will wait and see. I am dubious. I don\u2019t know that name changes are usually ever a good idea, to be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n While corporate leadership has hailed the split as an opportunity for greater investment in MSNBC, there is another upside for the network\u2019s longtime parent company, Comcast. At a time when the Federal Communications Commission and its Trump-appointed chair, Brendan Carr, have been pressuring television network owners to adhere to their statutory obligations, Comcast may benefit from no longer being associated with a network known as a place for criticism of the Trump administration. As a cable network, MSNBC is also out of Carr\u2019s purview.<\/p>\n In some ways, though, the fan festival highlighted one of the network\u2019s biggest challenges: that, like many cable news networks, its most loyal viewers are older. Some in the crowd struggled to navigate the stairs and unwieldy steps of the concert venue\u2019s second floor \u2013 though they showed plenty of verve and energy when the network\u2019s stars pumped them up with calls for democratic participation and criticisms of the Trump administration.<\/p>\n <\/span>The MS Now studio.<\/span> Photograph: MS NOW\/Ralph Bavaro<\/p>\n Asked by the Guardian about the network\u2019s median audience age (72), Kutler pointed to its success on YouTube and TikTok, two key platforms that remain challenging to monetize. \u201cI think when you combine the strength of our audience on [traditional television], and then fold in kind of the platforms of the future, I think we have a pretty great story to tell,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Splitting off from NBCUniversal and its longtime sister network NBC News has meant big changes for MSNBC\/MS NOW. In addition to moving out of 30 Rockefeller Center, the network was forced to build a news-gathering operation from scratch because it could no longer rely on NBC News correspondents to provide on-air reports. Over the last few months, the network has assembled a large bureau in Washington DC, staffed with veterans of news organizations like the Washington Post, and led by Scott Matthews, a former CNN and CNBC executive.<\/p>\n Election night was the first trial of the network\u2019s new in-house reporting operation and executives and hosts viewed it as a resounding success. \u201cWe had a news-gathering operation that did not miss a beat,\u201d Kutler said. \u201cWe were ahead or in every single one of the right places, and that organization did not exist six months ago. So that makes me incredibly proud.\u201d (MSNBC got very close to matching Fox News in prime time on election night and soundly defeated CNN.)<\/p>\n As NBC News and MSNBC split apart, several correspondents who had appeared regularly on both networks had to pick one long-term home. Steve Kornacki, who became synonymous with MSNBC\u2019s election night coverage as the khaki-wearing wonk-in-chief guiding viewers through electoral maps, signed a deal to join NBC News. On election night, he was replaced by the veteran MSNBC journalist Ali Velshi.<\/p>\n But the Los Angeles-based correspondent Jacob Soboroff decided this past summer that he wanted to be on Team MSNBC. Soboroff began with MSNBC in 2015 but had drifted over to the NBC News side and became a regular contributor on the Today show before coming back toward the cable network during the 2024 election. \u201cI fell back in love with being at MSNBC, and I had no idea the spin was coming,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n When the corporate decoupling was announced in November 2024, \u201cfor me, it was an immediate no-brainer that I wanted to go back to MS,\u201d said Soboroff, who added that his work for the cable network had allowed him to be the \u201cmost authentic version\u201d of himself as a journalist. He has also gotten to fill in as a primetime host on MSNBC, something he couldn\u2019t have done while reporting for NBC News.<\/p>\n \u201cI think there\u2019s a lot of runway for me and for anybody who is passionate about original journalism at MS,\u201d he said. \u201cFor me, it\u2019s always been about connecting with real people in real places to tell their stories, not about the politics.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cMS NOW: don\u2019t worry, you\u2019ll get used to it,\u201d that\u2019s how Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski put it on 11 October during an onstage appearance at MSNBC\u2019s annual live event for superfans in New York City. The event, which mostly filled up Manhattan\u2019s Hammerstein Ballroom with a group of eager power-viewers gawking to see their<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33804,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[659,10160,264],"class_list":{"0":"post-33803","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-find","9":"tag-msnbc","10":"tag-whats"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}