Media Giant MSNBC Rebrands to MS NOW

By: Alvin H. Green IV

The left-leaning news source MSNBC has fully rebranded to MS NOW after a split with their parent company, Comcast.  The news giant is moving to a new parent company known as Versant, which will soon be publicly traded and plans to take many other NBCUniversal cable networks under its wing.

Courtesy of ADWEEK

MS NOW stands for My Source for News, Opinion, and World. According to The Guardian, MS NOW's decision to leave NBC and Comcast came after a corporate restructuring led by Liz Jenkins and Jenny Storms, in which 150 people were laid off across NBC. Its Asian American, BLK, Latino and OUT teams were completely dissolved. 

After laying off seven percent of their workforce, NBC encouraged the workers to apply for the 140 available roles across the Comcast Family.

“I think it’s a little scummy what [NBC] did to their people,” said First Year Chandler Gates, a self-proclaimed Democrat from Texas. “And it doesn't really bode well that they dissolved all D.E.I. groups after. It’s like getting the moral compass taken out of your head.”

Versant, a company already worth 1.4 Billion dollars, stands to gain many other highly profitable NBCUniversal properties along with MSNBC, such as CNBC, Syfy, USA Network, and E! Entertainment. They will coexist alongside other media companies owned by Versant, like Rotten Tomatoes and Fandango.

“Frankly, I don’t care about the rebrand or merger or any of that,” said first-year Asase Ye Shabazz, another self-proclaimed Democrat. The English Major went on to criticize the abundance of corporate mergers in the modern day, and said that as long as MS NOW and Versant don’t cancel her favorite shows, “[She’ll] live.”

In an effort to avoid viewer confusion and create hype around the merger/ rebrand, MS NOW and Versant have reportedly spent $20 Million dollars on marketing, along with calling on popular hosts from their station like Rachel Maddow, Nicolle Wallace, and Alicia Menendez to explain the situation to viewers through ad spots on cable and YouTube.

In an interview with Deadline, MS NOW President Rebecca Kutler says she hopes to make the 30-year-old company into a “more modern” station, with a focus on speed and platforming. The station’s motto will be “Same Mission, New Name.”

Versant Media will enter the NASDAQ and have an Inaugural Investor Day on December 4, 2025, according to Comcast.