The big TV and film studios have spent the past decade, at least, in a ridiculous cycle of merging a kabillion stations/studios in ginormous mergers, only to later split up into separate companies and set the whole process in motion all over again. One of these big company divisions was announced by Comcast last year, that they were keeping NBC Universal, NBC News, Peacock, and Bravo together, while USA, Oxygen, E!, SYFY, the Golf Channel, CNBC, and MSNBC would be spun off into a new conglomerate called “Versant.” A year ago, MSNBC was promised it would keep its name… until NBC reneged and said MSNBC had to drop the ‘NBC’ part, since henceforth they will be news RIVALS! (Though no such directive was issued to CNBC, hmm.) So MSNBC unveiled their grand rebrand in August: My Source News Opinion World, aka MS NOW. The new name landed with a thud, but they’re sticking with it! They just confirmed the official name change is scheduled for November 15.
The name change comes “after months of meticulous planning and thoughtful collaboration across every corner of our organization” said Rebecca Kutler, president of the network, in a memo to staff. “We are facing it head-on, and our success in the months and years ahead will depend on our innovation and entrepreneurial approach.”
To make sure viewers understand, the network is launching a marketing campaign that tells its audience the overall news brand and channel will not change. “Same Mission. New Name,” will serve as a slogan of sorts for the switch, more pragmatic, perhaps, than others used by MSNBC over the years, including “This Is Who We Are,” “Lean Forward” or “The Place for Politics.” In one promo released for preview, Rachel Maddow tells viewers the network may be changing its title, but not what it does for its audience.
To be sure, MS NOW may seem a little different than MSNBC. The network has built up its own newsgathering staff, recruiting reporters and producers from places such as The Washington Post, NBC News, Politico and Bloomberg, among others. Viewers in recent weeks may have noticed a heavier focus on snaring newsmakers for interviews early on in a story’s news cycle. MSNBC has also been working to cultivate Republican guests, including Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and U.S. Senator John Thune, the Majority Leader.
In addition to staffing its own Washington Bureau, MSNBC struck a pact with Sky News that will make the latter organization’s coverage of international affairs available to MSNBC’s audiences in the United States.
Changing names of long-running media institutions can be risky. Warner Bros. Discovery recently found that dubbing a streaming service long associated with HBO with the name “Max” left it at a disadvantage when it came to brand recognition, particularly because many of Max’s most popular offerings are HBO programs. Paramount over the years changed the name and mission of the cable outlet now known as Paramount Network — it was known in different iterations as The Nashville Network, The National Network and Spike TV — and each overhaul undermined its brand in the overall media marketplace.
Executives hope viewers will adopt the new MS NOW nomenclature and remember the letters stand for “My Source for News, Opinion and the World.”
I’m sorry, did they seriously just say that “MS NOW” is the result of “months of meticulous planning and thoughtful collaboration”??? There are two options: 1) they’re just lying to us, or 2) MS NOW is, sadly, the finest they could come up with. Option 2 is more embarrassing, if you ask me. Look, I’m on (the network formerly known as) MSNBC’s side in all this! They have a brand identity of 30 years that they were promised they could retain and then NBC screwed them over. But if NBC knocked MSNBC down, MSNBC renaming itself MS NOW is like them giving themselves an extra punch before standing back up again. Aside from the issue of it legitimately sounding like a foundation for Multiple Sclerosis research, it’s the last sentence of the article that really captures the lame effort of the name(s): “Executives hope viewers will adopt the new MS NOW nomenclature and remember the letters stand for ‘My Source for News, Opinion and the World.’” Nothing grabs viewers like the desperate plea, “Please adopt our new nomenclature, we hope!”
And last, but definitely not least: what is the brilliant logic behind a news network rolling out a rebrand in the middle of the month AND on a Saturday? Surely there is a sound business reason that explains this so it’s not as obviously muddled as it seems to a lay person like myself?? Especially when just two weeks later December 1 falls on a Monday to cleanly start out a new news week/month???
Is Mizz Now like It Girl? 🤔
I no longer watch cable news, but that’s hideous.
Well. I’m assuming they want to tank the msnbc brand? Otherwise this makes no sense.
Also people still call twitter Twitter. People aren’t gonna stop calling it MSNBC.
Literally my first thought was multiple sclerosis… Also, that the ‘Now’ kind of implies a desire for a goddamn incurable, progressive, autoimmune/neurological disorder. Like, oooh gimme that tasty suffering!
What also hurts me inside is the part where they basically crowdsourced the new name, and either no one saw it as
the lamentable combination of letters it is, OR, people did push back, but the chain of fools at the top stuck to their under-regulated guns.
This is not just the darkest timeline—it is also the dumbest.
I wonder what % of the jobs being cut are the jobs they created as a promise to get cities/states to give them big tax incentives to build warehouses
The only show I want to watch is the Revolution being televised.