MSNBC’s name is being replaced, but its leaders insist that its mission will remain the same

NEW YORK (AP) — Asked what viewers should expect when television’s MSNBC makes its corporate divorce from NBC News final this weekend, network president Rebecca Kutler points to a poster on the wall of a conference room at its new offices off Times Square.

Its message reads: “Same Mission. New Name.”

“To me, that encapsulates exactly what we need to be saying,” Kutler said. “Our job in the next few weeks is to flood the zone … and make sure they know the thing that they love will be the exact same thing on Nov. 15.”

Saturday is when MSNBC officially becomes MS NOW, standing for My Source for News, Opinion and the World. That’s the most visible manifestation of parent company Comcast’s decision to spin off most of its cable networks into a new company known as Versant.

It’s tough enough when one partner tells another that they’re leaving for someone new. In this case, they’re just leaving the partner behind; a cable television network is considered such a diminishing asset in today’s media world that giant companies would rather be free of them.

“A lot of us really didn’t know what it meant,” said prime-time host Jen Psaki, “and it didn’t feel great initially.”

Embracing the ethos of a startup

Left on its own, MS NOW is embracing the ethos of a startup, suggesting it will be better positioned to experiment without ties to the more corporate NBC News. “Morning Joe” is starting its own newsletter. Podcast ideas are encouraged. The network is expanding live events, letting its television stars interact with the audience; Rachel Maddow has one in Chicago later this month.

“I didn’t see this as a divorce,” said nighttime host Michael Steele. “I see this as the kid growing up and leaving home. We all know what that’s like.”

As Kutler says, the network’s focus on news and commentary with a liberal perspective remains intact. So does its lineup of stars — Maddow, Nicolle Wallace, Ari Melber and the like. MS NOW has built its own reporting and support staff, and is moving into a new headquarters west of Broadway in Manhattan that is, not incidentally, the former longtime headquarters of The New York Times.

The new office, tricked out with the latest electronics, ends one geographical oddity: No longer are the political polar opposites MSNBC and Fox News Channel located across Sixth Avenue from one another.

The MS NOW news staff has about three dozen reporters, among them Washington Post alums Jackie Alemany and Carol Leonnig. It has signed partnerships with Sky News for international reporting and AccuWeather for forecasting.

“Being divorced from NBC News gives it the opportunity to make deals on its own to supplement its cable existence,” said longtime broadcast and cable news executive Kate O’Brian, who spent several years at ABC. They have a strong identity and a built-in audience of people who oppose President Donald Trump, she said.

“They’re lean, nimble and niche, putting them in a better position to adapt to any emergent platforms,” O’Brian said.

MS NOW is leaner in audience than MSNBC was a year ago. The network’s prime-time weekday average of 1.17 million viewers this year is down 29% from 2024 — a number linked in large part to its viewers’ disappointment at the presidential election results. Fox News Channel, with Trump to cheer on, is up 14% to 3.11 million viewers.

Yet MSNBC has roughly twice the audience of CNN, which saw an identical 29% decrease in viewers over the first nine months of 2025. MSNBC was also buoyed by a strong election night performance where it ran neck-and-neck with Fox, even while missing the khaki-clad numbers nerd, Steve Kornacki, who chose to remain with NBC News.

MS NOW’s freedom appealed to reporters Jacob Soboroff, who chose it over NBC News, and Rosa Flores, who said she is joining the newly-named network from CNN primarily because she sees the opportunity to do a greater variety of things beyond the immigration beat she’d been covering.

“All the legacy news organizations are trying to make their way,” Flores said. “I felt like being part of a news organization that was building solutions from the ground up was so unique that I wanted to be a part of it.”

Being part of a news operation with a clear political identity was not a barrier for Soboroff. “It’s about the people for me, always, it’s not about the politics,” he said. “I feel like I do what I’ve always done, which is report the facts on the ground, turn them around to our audience and let the audience make up their own minds about what they think.”

Cleaning out the office at Rockefeller Center

The company is spending a reported $20 million on a marketing campaign designed to publicize the changeover, which will include billboards in Times Square, the Grove in Los Angeles and the South Capitol Digital Experience Wall in Washington, D.C.

Far cheaper is the mug with MSNBC crossed out and replaced by MS NOW on the set of “Morning Joe.” Co-host Mika Brzezinski recently cleared out her Rockefeller Center office and reminisced about times that NBC’s Richard Engel and Keir Simmons appeared on their show. “We’re going to miss some reporters,” she said, “and they’re going to miss us.”

With a rapidly evolving media landscape, success or failure will ultimately be decided by who has the content people most want to see, said her co-host and husband, Joe Scarborough.

“If this were five years ago, I would have been, ‘Oh, my God, how are we going to do this?’” he said. “Everything is so fluid now.”

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David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social