{"id":612221,"date":"2026-09-10T22:48:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T22:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/612221\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T22:48:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T22:48:10","slug":"ms-now-members-lounge-coming-with-subscription-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/612221\/","title":{"rendered":"MS NOW Members Lounge Coming with Subscription Service"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tLatr this month a few thouand of MS NOW<\/a>\u2018s biggest fans will descend on College Park Center at the University of Texas at Arlington for what the news brand says will be its biggest event yet: \u201cMS NOW Live: Together in Texas.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe event comes at a critical moment for MS NOW, which this week launched its first subscription offering, the MS NOW membership. The Texas event, it turns out, will be a testing ground, in more ways than one. MS NOW members attending the live event (and those attending a live taping of The Weeknight this week) will discover a dedicated members lounge, with a bar, comfortable seating, and the opportunity to mingle with other super fans as well as some of the channel\u2019s talent. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAs a long timer in our business, I feel like it\u2019s really, really different,\u201d says Marcus Mabry, MS NOW\u2019s senior VP of content strategy, \u201cI\u2019ve never had anything like this in any other news space I\u2019ve been in, we actually want to emphasize people being together, and that\u2019s really powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019ve ignored humanity for some reason,\u201d he adds. \u201cSo even down to the decor, the offerings of food and beverage, even down to that, it\u2019s about warmth and celebration, and it celebrates of our democracy, which we don\u2019t often do that much these days in our country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMabry says that MS NOW intends to pop up member lounges throughout the year, likely tied to live MS NOW events or news events, a real-life benefit to a digital subscription, and one of many features that executives at the cable channel hope will help it stand out in a crowded space for subscriptions.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOur challenge is to prove to our audience, which is many million strong, that this is worth their time and this is worth their wallet, and we are pretty humble about the task in front of us, and we know that it\u2019s a busy, crowded marketplace,\u201d MS NOW president Rebecca Kutler says, when asked by The Hollywood Reporter in the company\u2019s New York headquarters about entering a crowded market. \u201cWe think through our research that we have found a white space that\u2019s meaningful. We think we are creating something that doesn\u2019t currently exist, and now it\u2019s on our team to deliver on that and earn, earn our members, earn the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe membersip will have plenty of video content, of course. All the MS NOW shows are there, as are a slate of originals, including interview programs hosted by Rachel Maddow and Claire McCaskill, a data-centric program led by Ali Velshi, The Very Last Word with Lawrence O\u2019Donnell, and a legal show led by Andrew Weissmann.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut the company is leaning into the other stuff even more: Live Q&A\u2019s with anchors and correspondents, twice per day, including standing Q&A\u2019s every week with the likes of Rachel Maddow and Joe Scarborough.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe talent has fully bought in. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFor us on the talent side, we all raised our hands because we also know what the future looks like, right?\u201d says Stephanie Ruhle, who will also do weekly Q&As. \u201cThis wasn\u2019t a question of, do we want to enter into a new venture with Rebecca? We make great shows and we feel great about it, but it\u2019s not a secret that linear TV is going in one direction, and so none of us are saying, \u2018well, we\u2019re going to jump off this ship.\u2019 We\u2019re saying we are part of an amazing machine. We see where the future is. Why don\u2019t we maintain what we have and now jump into this new venture? That\u2019s not a giant financial investment for our company, that\u2019s an investment for all of us in our collective futures.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThere will be news, but not too much news, and at the end of the day\u2019s top stories, there will be a dedicated mindfulness experience, in partnership with Calm.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn their research, executives found that consumers \u201csaid they were overwhelmed by the sheer volume of news. They said they were isolated, either because they were blue dots in red states, or because they were afraid to wade into the cesspool that is social media. And they told us they were anxious, either about the state of the country, or the state of the world, or frankly the future of our democracy,\u201d says Mabry. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSo what we\u2019ve done in the MS NOW membership and app is we\u2019ve built a product designed to confront overwhelm with concise curation, to defeat isolation with connection, both to our journalists and to each other, and to confront anxiety by giving our members agency,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI don\u2019t know whose idea was to put wellness into this thing, but it\u2019s brilliant because that is literally the antidote to everything I hear,\u201d quips Velshi, speaking to reporters in MS NOW\u2019s office this week.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe mindfulness content will include meditation exercises, but also content from doctors, therapists and psychologists, not to mention former ABC News correspondent Dan Harris, who left ABC five years ago to focus<\/a> on his meditation company. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think there\u2019s a huge opportunity here, and there\u2019s a real service that can be provided,\u201d Harris says. \u201cA lot of people feel like they need their anxiety and anger in order to do anything in this environment, and I get that. I\u2019m not trying to deny you your anger, I just don\u2019t think it\u2019s the cleanest burning fuel. I think the cleanest burning fuel is a regulated nervous system that allows you to respond wisely with maximum effectiveness.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut getting together in real life will be a big piece of it, through big events, members lounges, and even live tapings of episodes like The Weeknight, which will also be heading to Texas.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think this is actually very transformative,\u201d says Weeknight co-host Symone Sanders. \u201cIt is no small thing that a news organization, especially in this economy, is investing in their folks going on the road, but also investing in in-person experiences. It feels kind of BravoCon-ish, if you will.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt is building on the connections, the parasocial relationship, frankly, that we build with our audience for the people that tune in with us every night. But I think this kind of investment is the future, and we\u2019ve clearly got something going,\u201d she continued. \u201cWe are inviting people to our table, and so we want folks to feel like they are literally sitting down having dinner with us every night. And the in-person aspect of that just allows us to magnify it even more.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIf CNN\u2019s subscription is for news junkies, and Fox Nation is for Fox fans, MS NOW thinks it can carve out a slice of the business that is distinct, and less dependent on a linear TV brand that is sliding in one direction.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe believe, and you\u2019ll hear me say this over and over again, our brand is to be pro-democracy, and if you are pro-democracy, kind of subhead A of that is strong, free, and fair press, and that is a huge part of what we are building, both for our DTC community and for the overall MS NOW brand,\u201d Kutler says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Latr this month a few thouand of MS NOW\u2018s biggest fans will descend on College Park Center at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":612222,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[458,146,85,46,206155],"class_list":["post-612221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-ms-now"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/612222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}