“The MSNBC NAME IS About to be Phased Out. Early Monday, As The News Brand Preps for a Future Separated from NBC News, The Cable TV Stalwart Unveils World. ” The Shift Retires a name that was was Christisned in”, – WRITE: www.hollywoodReporter.com
The Shift Retires A Name that Was Christisned in 1996 with the Launch of the CO-Branded Partnership Between Microsoft and NBC News that Carried the Msnbc Name. And, While Microsoft Exited A Coupple Years Later, The Cable Brand Home to Rachel Maddow, Jen Psaki, Chris Hayes, Lawrennce O’Donnell and More Had Stuck with the Original Branding Branding.
The Impetus for the Change? NBCuniversal Owner Comcast Is Spinning Off MOST ALL OF ITS TV Channels Into A Separate Publicly-Traded Company, Versant, In A A A A DEAL THAT MAY CLOSE TIIS FALL. Because of that, The Formerly Named Msnbc Is Rebuilding Its News Organization for a World in WHICH IT DOESN’T COLLLABORATE DIRECTLY WITH NBC NEWS AND CARRY BASHYUEKOCKOCKOCK As the reband hit inboxes today, Hollywood Reporter Edites Chatted About the Move, and Read in-Between the Lines on What It Could Signify.
The Logo for Ms Now. CourTesy of Versant
Erik Hayden: For MONTHS, WITH COMNING TO SPIN ITS DECLINING CABLE TV Assets – MSNBC, CNBC, USA Network, Oxygen, E!, Syfy and The Golf Channel – Into A NEWAKRA. “What does msnbc look like without nbcuniversal and nbc News?” SO while it was surprising to see this rebrand for the rebecca kutler-run news Brand, the writing was on the wall that has notied to be a pivot. And While It’s Also Not That Surpring That Comcast Wanted To Kep The Peacock Imagery and NBC Lettering For Its Own Flagsip News Services, It’s Still A Bit Jarrying to See. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST READ?
Tony Maglio: My First Read Went Something Like This: “Um, What’s-Tat-Now?” The MS Thing Is SO Weird: Microsoft Has Had Exactly Zero Ties to Msnbc Since 2012 (and from the TV Channel, Since 2005). Back THEN, you wouldn’t want to change a web address or an establized channel/Brand name. But now, who not? Insthead, Versant (Already A Confusion Name Itelf) Elected to Back in to An Acronym? Who is makeing these choices? If you want your Own Brand, as Versant CEO Mark Lazarus and Kutler Have SAID, Just Start Over. “MS NOW” to me reads like it’s a random Microsoft Application I’D Uninstall from My PC WHEN SPACE SPACE GOT TIGHT.
Eh: Also, this wasn’t a Decision Made from A Position of Strenguth. I doubt that, were it not to be pleaved off off from comcast, that msnbc executives would like to undertake a rebrand that nearly erases it Entire Name. I can’t Think of a Single Majoor News Organization that have undergone that sort of name change. USUALLY, IS The CORPORATE PARENT THAT CHANCES ITS NAME WHEN TIMES GET BLEAK (THINKING Of los angeles times‘Owner Tribune Trying to Go Buzzfeed with Ill-FATED TRONC) But The Names of the News Brands of Themselves Stay. I Can’t Imagine Many Will Be Using the ACRONYM’S MEANING, My Source for News, Opinion, and The World, On Second Reference Either.
Tm: Yeah, that part is just crazy. But It is Versant’s Expection, and Also Just How We Wound Often Do It To Remind Readers That This, Indeed, An Acronym, And Not Some Stylization Choice. (Example: Starz is not an acronym, so wite it as Starz, No Matter How Starz Wants It Written in the Media.) But My Source for News, Opin, and The World Is A absurd. No One Will Ever Say this except with a mocking tone. The acronym is so reverse -enginered and forced. MSNBC WAS A MASHUP OF MICROSOFT AND NBC NEWS – IT ACTUALLY Called for an acronym.
Eh: Also, What does it Say about the Relativ Strenguths of the Brand – and Internal Politics at Versant CHANNEL (IE not National Broadcasting Channel, Trademark Comcast)? That reads to me like is Seen as a safer, more durable Brand. Finance News Has Generally Seen More Stability than Political News and there appears to be a template that cnbc Chiefs are following (Build Like Bloomberg or The Wall Street Journal with pro tiers While Leaning on Strengths and Access of Live TV).
Tm: CNBC is So Interesting Because It Launched As A Bogus Acronym Itelf. YES, “Consumer News and Business Channel” is ostonsibly what it stood for, but in reality, the Acronym Stood for Cablevision NBC – as in National BroadCasting Channel – Becaus. We Can All Play Pretend on this One A Bit More Because The Double Entened Happened Way Back in 1989. To be Fair, Msnbc Lozing The Ms and Now the NBC does put Versant in a Tough Spot. It is Really Hard to Rebrand From Scratch, But This Attempt at A Half-Rarbrand (and HOPE No One Asks About the Acronym) Feels Despertate An Acronym.
Eh: If i was to try and THINK OF A SILVER LINING ON this Rebrand, at this Time, I Might Say, “Well, This is a New Political Moment with Massive Disruption For Tradiol, ATHANER. BRANEER NAMES Once Were and if Ms Now Really To Thrive it’llllllll need to lean in to the big rachel Maddow-like Names (and Hire More) to try and distinguishinguish itlf in a frate. But The Problem is that Msnbc Name does mean something, especialy to the audience that watches it regularly on linear tv. And yes, that may be an older audience that is getting smaller as more than Viewers Cut the CORD.
Tm: Right. Clearly, Versant Wanted The Closest-Posible Thing to “MSNBC” WITHOUT The “NBC.” But the “MS” was Never The Point (for Television) – the “NBC” was. SO to make the exception for cnbc but not msnbc feels not tethered to a whole Lot. Unfortunately, “MS NOW” is Just Like A “Nowthis News” to me. IT Feels Like A Media Publication That Launched 30 Minutes Ago, Not 30 Years. MS NOW WILL HAVE STRONG Resources, But A Name that – Initially, At Least – Implies No Differentiation from Any Other All Caps Play.
Eh: IT DOES REMIND ME OF NOWTHIS News, or A Bunch of Similar-Up Names that Maybe Fell by the Wayside in the Buzzfeed-Mashable 2010s Facebook Traffic Era. To Use A Different Example, Cable News Network Was The Origin of Cnn’s Name. I Can’t See, Even Who The Last Last Lights Are Turned Off On Cable TV, CNN Pivoting from That Name – IT’s Like National Public Radio and Npr, The Acronym Means Somes. in.
Tm: Exactly. Those are branded phrases that Became Acronyms. Acronyms exist as an Accepted Societal Shorthand for Things We All Know. Versant is doing this fully backwards.
You can Picture How This Went Down, Right? A Conference Room and A Whiteboard with:
M ______
S_______
N ______
________
________
And tuna subs.
“No One Leaves This Room Until We Have A New Five-Pleter Brand Name that Starts with Msn and Stands for… Something.”
It’s The Worst Wheel of Fortune Puzzle Ever.
Eh: Speaking of Which, MSN Still Exists As a Giant Web Portal That Millions of Readers Visit, So The Argument That The “MS” -Microsoft Connection is Not Relevant Bertecen. WHEN MICROSOFT WAS IN THE NEWS BUSINESS DOESN’T QUITE TRACK.
And on the subject of cnn vs.
MSNBC MS NOW: Msnbc Had Momentum in the Fight for Second Place Begind Fox News Channel (FNC to Some, Because that’s Actualally How Initials Work!). This Feels Like A Moment for Cnn to Actually Rally – They Must Be Thrilled.
Eh: The Rebrand Also Does Feel Like It UnderCuts Effrts to Take the Msnbc Brand to More Platforms than Just Live TV. There is a Burgeoning Live Events Business (The Next One is Msnbclive ’25, at the Hammerstein Ballroom in October) that now now will be need to be retrofeitted. Obviously the News Business Relies on Talent That Can Cut Through The Clutter, or Creaters with A ton of Audence. But, Barring that (and in an era of Belt-tigering for TV News, WHICH IS CONMETING RELATIVELY NEW to THAT Side of the Media Business, Unlike Print Or Digital) YOURSELF. It’s Tough Thinking that “My Source” Stands Out in an Era of Just YouTube Tiles Asking for Clicks.
Tm: Maybe It’s A “Thai Food Near Me” situation. What I Want to Know, Is Did Much of the Marketing Team that Came Up with “Peacock,” WHICH WAS WIDELY MOCKED AT TIME, GO Over with Versant?
I do want to give versnt and ms now an and opportunity for opTIMISM heRe. The Reality Is, MOST BRAND NAMES DON’T MAKE ALL The SENSE UNTIL THEY DO. (Tronc Had No Chance.) So IF MS NOW does an A absolutely Killer Job and Becomes Essential in the News-Gathering and News-Reporting Industry, We Will All Become Numb To It IT. In a good way.
Eh: I Remember, Back in 2011, WHEN MSNBC’s Marketing Tagline “Lean Forward” was Seen As a Bet on Embracing An Identity. Even if “was vague in the eye of the beholder. Arguably, this New Rebrand Does the Opposite.
Tm: Are we able to put a gif in a story? Because…
