MSNBC will rebrand as MS NOW on November 15, completing its split from sister network NBC News and parent company Comcast.
New spots will debut Monday featuring on-air personalities talking about the name change. MS NOW stands for My Source for News, Opinion, and the World.
“A big change is coming to this network,” Rachel Maddow says, “not in the kinds of stories we tell or in our values and or our commitment to the proud and the free and the brave. No, the big change, the only change, is our name. Same mission. New name.” It’s a teaser for a larger marketing campaign to start next month.
MSNBC is among the Comcast cable networks being spun off into a new company, Versant. With NBC News no longer a sister network, sharing correspondents and resources, MSNBC has been building up its own newsroom, including a Washington bureau, and has signed a distribution deal with Sky News for international reporting.
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Rebecca Kutler, the president of MSNBC, shared a memo, below, on the date for the debut of MS NOW and for a marketing campaign on the new branding.
Team,
On the morning of Nov. 15, we will officially make the switch to MS NOW.This moment comes after months of meticulous planning and thoughtful collaboration across every corner of our organization. We are facing it head-on, and our success in the months and years ahead will depend on our innovation and entrepreneurial approach.
Next week, we will unveil the powerful and moving messaging for our external campaign, and I can’t wait to share it with all of you first. We will then embark on an extensive and
broad-reaching national marketing effort to introduce people across the country to MS NOW.Ahead of that, our audience will begin seeing 15-second spots featuring some of our trusted hosts today. These brief spots reinforce that while our name will soon change, who we are and where viewers can find us will not: Same mission. New name.
This is just the beginning.
Additional information on where audiences can watch, stream, and engage with MS NOW can be found at msnbc.com/MSNOW.
Rebecca Kutler
President, MS NOW