MS NOW (formerly MSNBC)

MS NOW is a cable channel carrying politics, news and opinion programming. It was known as MSNBC until 2025.

Rebrand and Separation from Comcast

The channel’s corporate position changed twice in quick succession. In August 2025, in connection with a planned separation from Comcast, its owner announced that MSNBC would be rebranded MS NOW; the change took effect in November 2025. Versant Media Group, Inc. — incorporated in Pennsylvania on 1 May 2025 and until then a wholly owned subsidiary of Comcast operating within Comcast’s Media segment — completed its separation from Comcast on 2 January 2026, and its Class A stock began trading on Nasdaq under the ticker “VSNT” on 5 January 2026.

Versant’s filings record the cost of the change directly: amortization expense rose in 2025 “primarily due to the acceleration of amortization of the MSNBC trade name as a result of rebranding the network.” The company also lists customer confusion from its network rebrands among its risk factors.

MS NOW now sits in a portfolio alongside CNBC, USA Network, Golf Channel, E!, SYFY and Oxygen True Crime. Versant reports Nielsen-estimated advertising reach of 59 million U.S. households for MS NOW as of 31 December 2025.

Distribution

Versant describes MS NOW as operating “across multiple media platforms: multichannel video programming distributors, digital, social platforms, podcasts and live events.” The Peacock logo is being removed from Versant’s networks and products in connection with the separation, ending the channel’s association with Comcast’s streaming service.

Sourcing Note

The previous version of this page was materially out of date: it described MSNBC as an NBCUniversal cable channel streaming on Peacock, and did not register either the rebrand or the spin-off. The founded: 1996 value is removed — Versant’s filings do not state it and no other fetchable first-party source does.

Also removed as unsourceable: the reach line “1.2 million primetime viewers”; the characterization of the channel as “a progressive news channel” that found “success by counter-programming against Fox News”; the claims that its hosts “became influential voices in progressive politics” and that named programmes “became agenda-setting programs for Democratic politics and resistance movements”; and the account of ratings growth during the Trump administration. Political characterizations of the channel are not asserted in the project’s voice; Versant’s own description, “politics, news and opinion programming,” is used instead.

Four pages elsewhere in this knowledge base still refer to the channel as MSNBC (narratives/enemy-of-the-people-media, people/ezra-klein, people/rachel-maddow, and a February 2026 timeline event). Those references describe periods when MSNBC was the name in use and are not necessarily wrong, but they should be reviewed against the rebrand date.