My Source News Opinion World Brand Logo
Courtesy of Bersant
MSNBC will change its name later this year and will remove any peacock images that have been told from its branding. Comcast’s nbcuniversal.
The Political News Network will be renamed My Source News Opinion World or MS Now.
In January, Lazarus told a group of MSNBC staffers that the network would not change its name. However, during the transition plan over the past few months, NBCuniversal leaders decided that MSNBC should take a new name “to accelerate the distinction between MSNBC and NBC news organizations,” Lazarus wrote in a memo on Monday.
MSNBC President Rebecca Kutler added in her note to employees that the newsgroup focus will not change.
“Our name changes, but we are who we are and nothing we don’t. Our work and our commitment to our audience doesn’t abandon what our brand’s promises have been for 30 years,” she writes.
MSNBC is actively adopting around 100 new positions to set up its own newsroom independent of NBC News. The network already employs around 40 journalists from CNN, Bloomberg, Politico and other press outlets, and is establishing the first station in Washington, D.C.
“During this transition, NBCuniversal has determined that our brand needs a new, independent identity,” writes Kutler. “This decision will allow us to set up our own courses and assert our independence as we continue to build our own latest news gathering work.”
While MSNBC and NBC News have overlapping reports, including covering politics, CNBC news organizations have decided that the executives do not need to change their names, as NBC news is already well separated from NBC News, according to those familiar with the issue. Also, technically, “NBC” in “CNBC” does not arise from the National Broadcasting Co.
Still, CNBC will similarly acquire a new logo without the famous NBCuniversal Peacock. This applies to all Versant brands with a peacock in the logo. Sports content from the USA Network and Golf Channel will be branded together on USA Sports. Digital companies GolfNow and SportsEngine will also be changing their logos.
All the MSNBC name changes and new logos will be featured all by the end of the year.
MSNBC will soon launch a national marketing campaign that will accompany the launch of the new name “Unlike what we did in recent memory.”
MSNBC is the second most monitored cable news network, with an average annual primetime viewer of 1.2 million. The network has 28 on-air anchors, 21 correspondents and reporters, offering over 120 hours of live programming each week.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCuniversal, which owns CNBC. Bersant will become CNBC’s new parent company under the proposed spinoff.
