Versant Rebrands MSNBC to MS NOW, Drops NBC Peacock Logos in Comcast Split
Key Takeaways
- MSNBC changes its name to MS NOW (My Source News Opinion World) as part of Comcast spinoff
- The iconic NBC peacock logo disappears from all Versant networks
- Versant becomes the new parent company housing USA, CNBC, MSNBC, E!, Golf Channel, and more
- The separation completes by end of 2025 under CEO Mark Lazarus
- CNBC keeps its name but loses the peacock logo too
- The move reflects cord-cutting pressures and changing media landscape
The Monday Morning Memo That Changed Everything
Mark Lazarus sent a company memo Monday morning. Short. Direct. The kind that makes coffee cups pause midway to lips.
"The peacock is synonymous with NBCUniversal, and it is a symbol they have decided to keep within the NBCU family," he wrote. Just like that, twenty-eight years of MSNBC branding gets tossed into the corporate restructuring bin.
The memo hit employees like a cold shower. MSNBC will change its name to MS Now, for My Source News Opinion World, and unveil a new logo this year as the cable channel breaks away from its NBC News roots. No more peacock. No more NBC connection. Just MS NOW, which sounds like a text message from an impatient teenager.
Rebecca Kutler, MSNBC's president, admitted what everyone was thinking. For employees, it is hard to imagine the network without its familiar branding. Hard to imagine is corporate speak for "this feels like watching your childhood home get demolished."
The rebrand isn't some marketing whim. It's survival economics dressed up in consultant language.
Versant Emerges From Corporate Wreckage
Comcast's SpinCo, which will include USA, MSNBC, CNBC and E!, will be renamed Versant to emphasize corporate versatility and adaptability. Versatility. Adaptability. The kind of buzzwords that make middle managers nod knowingly while the rank-and-file wonder what the hell just happened.
Versant sounds like a pharmaceutical company that makes pills for restless leg syndrome. But here we are. The name got picked because some consulting firm ran focus groups and decided it sounded forward-thinking. Modern. Ready for whatever media apocalypse comes next.
Mark Lazarus, the current chairman of NBCUniversal's media group, will lead the new company. Lazarus, a name that carries its own biblical weight in a business where resurrection happens quarterly or not at all. He's the guy tasked with making this Frankenstein media company walk and talk like something coherent.
The spinoff includes the usual suspects: USA Network, CNBC, E!, Oxygen, Syfy, and Golf Channel. Along with complementary digital assets Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes and other properties that somehow survived the streaming wars. It's like cleaning out your garage and realizing you own more random stuff than you thought.
The new company, named Versant, will complete its spinoff from Comcast by the end of 2025. Twelve months to untangle decades of corporate DNA. To separate the wheat from the peacock feathers.
The Peacock Gets Plucked
CNBC will likewise be getting a new logo without the famed NBCUniversal peacock. This will be true for all of Versant's brands that have a peacock in the logo. The bird that's been NBC's mascot since 1956 gets shown the door. Evicted. Persona non grata in the new corporate structure.
Think about it. That peacock survived the rise of cable. The death of appointment television. The streaming revolution. Netflix. Disney Plus. TikTok stealing everyone's attention span. But it couldn't survive a corporate spinoff.
"This gives us the opportunity to chart our own path forward, create distinct brand identities, and establish an independent news" operation, Lazarus explained. Corporate translation: We're getting divorced and keeping the kids but not the wedding photos.
The peacock logo represented something. Heritage. Stability. The kind of brand recognition that marketing executives dream about and spend millions trying to create. Now it's roadkill on the information superhighway.
NBC gets to keep its colorful bird. Versant gets to start from scratch with logos that'll probably look like they were designed by a committee of accountants. Progress, they'll call it. Innovation. The future of media.
MS NOW: When Acronyms Attack
My Source News Opinion World. Say it out loud. Sounds like a social media platform designed by people who never used social media. The kind of name that gets workshopped to death in conference rooms with whiteboards and too much coffee.
MSNBC is undergoing an extreme makeover: Upon its split from NBC News, the cable network will be rebranded as My Source News Opinion World (MS NOW). Extreme makeover, like those home renovation shows where they tear down perfectly good houses and rebuild them with open floor plans nobody asked for.
The acronym feels forced. Awkward. Like watching your uncle try to use slang he heard on TikTok. MS NOW suggests urgency that cable news hasn't possessed since people stopped watching appointment television. It's not NOW when you're competing with Twitter for breaking news and YouTube for everything else.
But here's what the suits probably figured out during their strategy sessions: MSNBC was always going to be a problem. The name literally contains "NBC", kind of hard to divorce that connection when it's tattooed right there in the logo. So they went nuclear. Complete rebrand. Fresh start. New name that nobody will remember but won't confuse anyone about corporate parentage.
The network will keep its personalities. Rachel Maddow isn't becoming Rachel MS NOW. Joe Scarborough won't start calling his show "Morning Joe NOW." The familiar faces stay. Just the wrapping paper changes.
Corporate Chess Moves
Comcast agreed to buy a majority stake in NBCUniversal from General Electric in 2009, combining one of the country's largest operators of cable TV with the sizable NBC media and entertainment operation. Sixteen years later, they're splitting up the band. Conscious uncoupling for corporations.
The cable channels were supposed to be the golden goose. The cable channels were seen as a particularly lucrative acquisition back when people still paid for bundles and watched things when they were actually broadcast. Those days feel like archaeology now.
While we don't have a precise timetable for completing the transition, we are estimating that it will take approximately a year. A year to surgically separate what took over a decade to build. Corporate divorce is messier than the personal kind, more lawyers, more paperwork, same emotional wreckage.
The spinoff reflects harsh reality. Cable television is dying a slow, expensive death. They're the first real public-facing changes in Versant's upcoming separation from Comcast's NBCUniversal. First changes, but not the last. When corporations start rebranding everything, it usually means someone's panicking about revenue projections.
Comcast keeps the profitable parts. Streaming services. Theme parks. The NBC broadcast network that still makes money from football and prime-time advertising. Versant gets the cable channels, the part of the business that's slowly bleeding subscribers like a punctured tire loses air.
Sports Gets Shuffled Too
Sports content on the USA Network and Golf Channel will be branded together under USA Sports. Because nothing says streamlined like taking two different sports channels and mashing them together under one umbrella brand.
Golf Channel has spent decades building brand recognition among people who care about golf. USA Network carries everything from WWE wrestling to Premier League soccer. Now they'll share a logo. Share an identity. Like forcing roommates with completely different lifestyles to share a Netflix password.
The move makes financial sense in that grim corporate way. Fewer logos to design. Fewer brand guidelines to maintain. Fewer marketing budgets to juggle. But it feels like watching two perfectly good restaurants get turned into a food court. Efficient, maybe. Soulless, definitely.
Sports programming represents Versant's best hope for survival. Live events still draw viewers. Still command advertising dollars. Golf and wrestling might not have much in common, but they both happen in real time. That's worth something in a world where everything else gets streamed on demand.
The rebrand suggests Versant knows what business it's really in: selling live programming to people who haven't cut the cord yet. Everything else is just filler between commercial breaks.
The Streaming Wars Casualty Report
This whole mess traces back to Netflix. To YouTube. To TikTok. To every platform that convinced people they didn't need to pay for channels they never watched. The streaming revolution didn't just change how we consume media, it blew up the entire economic model that supported cable television.
MSNBC built its brand during the Bush years. Thrived during Obama's presidency. Found its voice during Trump's administration. But brands don't matter when people stop subscribing to cable packages. Revenue streams dry up faster than corporate goodwill.
The name, which stands for My Source for News Opinion and the World, will take effect later this year, once the network becomes part of the new media company, Versant. Later this year, corporate speak for "we're still figuring this out but needed to announce something."
The rebrand represents a Hail Mary pass in the final quarter of cable television's relevance. MS NOW sounds desperate. Sounds like a company trying too hard to appear modern while everything around it crumbles into streaming particles.
Versant will compete in a media landscape that doesn't reward patience. Doesn't forgive mistakes. Doesn't care about legacy brands or peacock logos or decades of carefully cultivated viewer loyalty. It's a world where attention spans get measured in seconds and brand recognition matters less than algorithm optimization.
The cable news business is becoming a niche market. MS NOW will be fighting for scraps with CNN and Fox News while YouTube creators build audiences larger than all cable networks combined. It's not exactly a winning position, but it's the hand Versant got dealt.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: When will MSNBC officially become MS NOW?
A: The name change takes effect later in 2025 as part of the Versant spinoff completion, expected by year's end.
Q: Will MSNBC's programming and hosts change with the rebrand?
A: The network's personalities and show formats are expected to remain the same, only the name and logo are changing.
Q: Why is Comcast spinning off these cable channels?
A: Declining cable subscriptions and cord-cutting trends have made these channels less profitable, prompting Comcast to separate them into an independent company.
Q: What other channels are part of the Versant spinoff?
A: USA Network, CNBC, E!, Oxygen, Syfy, Golf Channel, plus digital properties like Fandango and Rotten Tomatoes.
Q: Will CNBC also get a new name?
A: CNBC keeps its name but loses the NBC peacock logo, along with all other Versant properties.
Q: What does MS NOW stand for exactly?
A: My Source News Opinion World, a new acronym created for the rebranded network.
Q: Who will run Versant after the spinoff?
A: Mark Lazarus, current chairman of NBCUniversal's media group, will serve as CEO of the new company.
Q: Will MS NOW still have a relationship with NBC News?
A: The licensing agreements and operational relationships are still being determined as part of the year-long transition process.