From MSNBC to MS NOW

The Guardian - "MS NOW: Don’t Worry, You’ll Get Used To It,” that’s how Morning Joe’ co-host Mika Brzezinski put it on 11 October during an onstage appearance at MSNBC’s annual live event for superfans in New York City.

The event, which mostly filled up Manhattan’s Hammerstein Ballroom with a group of eager power-viewers gawking to see their favorite cable news hosts, was the network’s last as MSNBC.

The US’s biggest liberal-leaning network – which has been known as MSNBC since its launch in 1996 – will officially become known as MS NOW. The somewhat forced acronym stands for My Source for News, Opinion, and the World. The “MS” comes from the network’s original partnership with Microsoft back in the 1990s, which ended more than a decade ago. Network president Rebecca Kutler told the Guardian last week that she felt “very strongly” about keeping the letters because of the history of the brand and because it’s how many people refer to the channel anyway.

The change was forced on the network by its parent company, NBCUniversal, which is breaking off MSNBC along with a few other cable networks into a new, separate company called Versant. MSNBC/MS Now is trying to make the best of it, using it as an opportunity to promote the brand anew as a source of patriotic, trustworthy news and analysis.