The way MS NOW execs and talent describe their operation suggests the soon-to-be-former MSNBC is a skunkworks start-up emerging from stealth mode instead of a nearly 30-year-old cable news mainstay.
“What’s exciting about it is it’s a different approach,” prime-time host Jen Psaki said during a media briefing this month at the network’s new Times Square studios. “It feels a bit more modern [compared] to what NBC has been doing, or what the bigger universe is doing, in terms of what we’re expecting from reporters, what we’re working with them on.”
The switch will officially be thrown Saturday to light up the MS NOW brand (short for My Source for News, Opinion and the World) and officially bid farewell to MSNBC. The move is a part of the spinoff of former NBCUniversal cable networks into a new stand-alone corporate entity called Versant. With NBC News (along with sports, local stations, Telemundo and Bravo) remaining with the Comcast mother ship, the decision was made to cut longstanding ties between the cable outlet and NBC.
“Whether we are at 30 Rock or over here, or what our company name is, is not that relevant to me,” Kutler said. “What’s relevant to me is, do we have the resources? Do we have the team? Do we have the platform to put out the smartest content? And are we now part of an organization that has the mobility to actually figure out, we know where our audience is on linear television?”
Kutler added that Versant CEO-in-waiting Mark Lazarus has created “an agile culture” and “a much flatter culture” than the one at MSNBC. “The time from idea to decision is, like, 10% of what it has been in any previous role. … That is a huge advantage when speed is everything.”
A promotional campaign, reported to cost in the range of $20 million, has featured network talent like Rachel Maddow reading from the U.S. Constitution and emphasizing the tagline, “Same Mission. New Name.” As the longtime left-of-center player in the cable news wars, MSNBC has faced serious ratings challenges of late, trailing the category’s dominant player, Fox News, by a wide margin but leading CNN. A mid-October Nielsen big data + panel report pegged MSNBC’s average primetime audience at 822,000 total viewers, 63,000 of them aged 25 to 54.
The three-horse race of cable news, of course, is no longer the main yardstick. The company is investing in digital news, podcasts and talent-based newsletters. “The landscape’s completely changed,” Morning Joe host Scarborough said. “You know, ‘Who’s gonna win, who’s gonna lose?’ It all comes down to content.”
Kutler and the network talent said quality reporting would be her main objective. “It is just such a huge privilege in this moment to invest in journalism, and if I think about what the core tenets of MS NOW are going to be, one of them is going to be to be pro-journalism. which I think says everything about what our audience is looking for in this moment and says everything about what is necessary in a functioning democracy.”
Given the separation from NBC, considerable thought has been given to things like weather (which will be supplied by a partnership with AccuWeather) as well as ensuring no story slips through the cracks. In cable news, stories break in remote places where NBC affiliates traditionally had been the go-to suppliers of footage and reporters on the ground.
Asked about what will replace that, Kutler said the network has a “belts-and-suspenders” setup with a portfolio of vendors and partners, including the Associated Press, Reuters, Sky and even a licensing deals with affiliates covering “virtually every U.S. market.”
The studios, built out in the building on West 43rd Street that once housed the New York Times, have a similar aesthetic to the ones at 30 Rock, but staffers describe a world of difference.
“Morning Joe was an experiment, and we’ve been experimenting ever since. We love trying new things. We love trying new shows, and new ideas,” said the show’s co-host, Mika Brzezinski. “I think this is gonna be a place where that kind of thinking can flourish on high octane. When we were at 30 Rock and in the old setup with the old constraints and connections, there were a lot of notes happening. Like, ‘You can’t do this because …’ or, ‘You can’t do that because …’ or, ‘This doesn’t work this way because, and in this building …”
Brzezinski’s co-host and husband, Joe Scarborough, suggested that the parting with NBC may not be forever. “I really do hope down the road that we can have people on our show from the NBC universe. I think that will happen. I can’t imagine, you know, never seeing Keir Simmons again or Richard Engel. But as we make this debut and this departure, we are looking for new ways to deliver more news to a more global audience. And I think this is a perfect opportunity to do so.”
Michael Steele, co-host of The Weekend, described the MS NOW launch process as “a natural next progression” in the MSNBC narrative. When he learned of the split and rebrand, he said, “I didn’t see this as a divorce. I saw this as a kid grows up and is now leaving home. You know, we all know what that’s like.”
When a reporter noted that in this case the “kid” is almost 30 years old, Steele smiled. “There are some 30-year-olds who finally realize it’s time to leave, right? And mom and dad agree. And so for me, it wasn’t in that sense a breakup, but an appropriate separation.”
Separating is the first step. MS NOW, and the overall Versant portfolio, will soon have to persuade Wall Street about the merits of linear TV. The spinoff from Comcast is expected to be completed in early 2026.
MS NOW host Stephanie Ruhle, who became a TV journalist after a career in investment banking, was asked why investors should buy into the Versant thesis. “I spent my career in distressed debt,” she said. “There’s no better place to make money than in distressed assets.”