What’s in a name? MS NOW – formerly MSNBC – will soon find out | MSNBC

“MS NOW: Don’t Fear, You’ll Get Used To It,” that’s how Morning Joe’ co-host Mika Brzezinski put it on 11 October throughout an onstage look at MSNBC’s annual dwell occasion for superfans in New York Metropolis.The occasion, which principally stuffed up Manhattan’s Hammerstein Ballroom with a bunch of keen power-viewers gawking to see their favourite cable information hosts, was the community’s final as MSNBC.Beginning Saturday, the US’s greatest liberal-leaning community – which has been often called MSNBC since its launch in 1996 – will formally turn into often called MS NOW. The considerably pressured acronym stands for My Supply for Information, Opinion, and the World. The “MS” comes from the community’s unique partnership with Microsoft again within the Nineteen Nineties, which ended greater than a decade in the past. Community president Rebecca Kutler informed the Guardian final week that she felt “very strongly” about protecting the letters due to the historical past of the model and since it’s how many individuals check with the channel anyway.The change was pressured on the community by its mother or father firm, NBCUniversal, which is breaking off MSNBC together with just a few different cable networks into a brand new, separate firm known as Versant. MSNBC/MS Now’s making an attempt to make one of the best of it, utilizing it as a chance to advertise the model anew as a supply of patriotic, reliable information and evaluation.MSNBC TV anchor Mika Brzezinski, co-host of the present Morning Joe, takes questions from the viewers on 11 October 2017 at a Harvard College discussion board in Cambridge, Massachusetts. {Photograph}: Steven Senne/APThe change comes at a very difficult time for tv networks, that are weathering declines in subscription charges as viewers more and more drop dear cable packages for cheaper streaming choices.On the dwell occasion, Brzezinski – like many MSNBC stars who’ve sat lately for interviews – assured the gang that she was pleased with the change. “MS Now. I find it irresistible,” she stated. “We get to remain in 30 Rock, proper?” her husband and co-anchor Joe Scarborough jokingly requested. Sadly not – the community has moved from New York’s most well-known media hub over to a far much less glamorous workplace constructing in Instances Sq. that when housed The New York Instances.Whereas Brzezinski obtained just a few laughs with a riff about how she was making an attempt to get used to the change prematurely (“It’s like I’m 58 however I say I’m 60 – I wish to get forward of issues,” she joked) few within the crowd appeared to pay attention to the brand new identify.Seemingly sensing this, the community lately invested $20m in a nationwide promoting marketing campaign to carry viewers in control on the identify change – and perhaps even get them a bit enthusiastic about it. On 4 November, election evening, the community aired two 60-second adverts – one featured star host Rachel Maddow studying the preamble to the structure whereas patriotic imagery and vignettes from US historical past flashed throughout the display screen, and the opposite Maya Angelou’s speech on the United Nations in 1996.MS NOW’s studio. {Photograph}: VersantBoth adverts, which highlighted the community’s greatest stars, ended with the identical message: “MS NOW. Similar Mission. New identify.”Scarborough additionally conveyed consolation with the identify change, telling the gang on the fan fest: “When you do a great job, and you’ve got first rate lighting, and you may speak to individuals, and so they wish to hear your take, they wish to hear the story – it doesn’t matter what we name the community, it doesn’t matter the place we movie it.”However names do matter, significantly once they have outlined a model for many years. “It’s a huge deal to rebrand an organization after 30 years. We perceive that,” Kutler stated at an occasion for reporters final week. “We perceive it’s a problem, and we’re right here for it.”Considered one of her greatest stars, primetime host and former White Home press secretary Jen Psaki, acknowledged that she initially seen the identify change as a “headache” for branding functions. However, she stated on the identical occasion, she got here to appreciate that the community’s viewers care extra about their favourite hosts than the community’s identify. “There’s a dedication and dedication to sure faces who’re a part of the model that I believe individuals search them out wherever they could be,” she stated. “And that made me really feel higher.”Jen Psaki, former White Home press secretary, seems on Meet the Press in Washington DC on 25 September 2022. {Photograph}: NBC/William B. Plowman/Getty ImagesQuizzed concerning the change in an internet group for MSNBC superfans, most stated they have been nice with the channel’s new identify – although there was some confusion about entry it and whether or not it will stay on the identical dial. “So long as the journalists, commentators, writers, and many others, stay and are free to current information with out interference, they will name it something they need,” one fan stated.One of many community’s former high stars, Pleasure Reid, is much less positive. In a wide-ranging interview with the Guardian lately, she cited her previous expertise working as an analyst for a beverage firm. “I don’t suppose it’ll cease individuals from watching their favourite hosts,” she stated. “However as an general advertising and marketing train, I’ll wait and see. I’m doubtful. I don’t know that identify adjustments are normally ever a good suggestion, to be trustworthy.”Whereas company management has hailed the cut up as a chance for better funding in MSNBC, there’s one other upside for the community’s longtime mother or father firm, Comcast. At a time when the Federal Communications Fee and its Trump-appointed chair, Brendan Carr, have been pressuring tv community homeowners to stick to their statutory obligations, Comcast could profit from now not being related to a community often called a spot for criticism of the Trump administration. As a cable community, MSNBC can be out of Carr’s purview.In some methods, although, the fan pageant highlighted one of many community’s greatest challenges: that, like many cable information networks, its most loyal viewers are older. Some within the crowd struggled to navigate the steps and unwieldy steps of the live performance venue’s second flooring – although they confirmed loads of verve and vitality when the community’s stars pumped them up with requires democratic participation and criticisms of the Trump administration.MS now studio. {Photograph}: VersantAsked by the Guardian concerning the community’s median age (72), Kutler pointed to its success on YouTube and TikTok, two key platforms that stay difficult to monetize. “I believe while you mix the power of our viewers on [traditional television], after which fold in form of the platforms of the longer term, I believe now we have a reasonably nice story to inform,” she stated.Splitting off from NBCUniversal and its longtime sister community NBC Information has meant huge adjustments for MSNBC/MS NOW. Along with transferring out of 30 Rockefeller Middle, the community was pressured to construct a news-gathering operation from scratch as a result of it may now not depend on NBC Information correspondents to supply on-air studies. Over the previous few months, the community has assembled a big bureau in Washington DC, staffed with veterans of stories organizations just like the Washington Put up, and led by Scott Matthews, a former CNN and CNBC government.Election evening was the primary trial of the community’s new in-house reporting operation and executives and hosts seen it as a powerful success. “We had a news-gathering operation that didn’t miss a beat,” Kutler stated. “We have been forward or in each single one of many proper locations, and that group didn’t exist six months in the past. In order that makes me extremely proud.” (MSNBC obtained very near matching Fox Information in primetime on election evening and soundly defeated CNN.)As NBC Information and MSNBC cut up aside, a number of correspondents who had appeared repeatedly on each networks needed to decide one long-term house. Steve Kornacki, who turned synonymous with MSNBC’s election evening protection because the khaki-wearing wonk-in-chief guiding viewers by way of electoral maps, signed a deal to hitch NBC Information. On election evening, he was changed by veteran MSNBC journalist Ali Velshi.However Los Angeles-based correspondent Jacob Soboroff determined this previous summer season that he wished to be on Staff MSNBC. Soboroff started with MSNBC in 2015 however had drifted over to the NBC Information aspect and have become an everyday contributor on the At present present earlier than coming again towards the cable community throughout the 2024 election. “I fell again in love with being at MSNBC, and I had no concept the spin was coming,” he stated.When the company decoupling was introduced in November 2024, “for me, it was a direct no-brainer that I wished to return to MS,” stated Soboroff, who added that his work for the cable community has allowed him to be the “most genuine model” of himself as a journalist. He has additionally gotten to fill in as a primetime host on MSNBC, one thing he couldn’t have accomplished whereas reporting for NBC Information.“I believe there’s quite a lot of runway for me and for anyone who’s obsessed with unique journalism at MS,” he stated. “For me, it’s all the time been about connecting with actual individuals in actual locations to inform their tales, not concerning the politics.”