Revealed: MSNBC is about to get a new name

MSNBC will be getting a new name by the end of this year.

The left-leaning news and progressive opinion cable network will change its name to My Source News Opinion World, or MS NOW, as part of a corporate spinoff from Comcast, reported the New York Times.

“I want to acknowledge that for many of you who have spent years or decades here, it is hard to imagine the network by any other name,” said network president Rebecca Kutler in a memo sent to employees on Monday. “This was not a decision that was made quickly or without significant debate.”

The name change is meant to convey the network's mission to provide “breaking news and best-in-class opinion journalism,” Kutler told employees.

Most of the cable channels that had been part of NBCUniversal TV are being spun off into a new company called Versant and will require them to stop using the NBC brand and its signature Peacock, which will remain with Comcast, but CNBC will keep its initials, which stand for “Consumer News and Business Channel."

MSNBC has hired at least three dozen journalists since the split a few months ago in preparation from splitting off from the news gathering operation at NBC News, and Kutler told employees the rebrand would not change the network's core identity or its editorial focus.

“While our name will be changing, who we are and what we do will not,” Kutler said. “Our commitment to our work and our audiences will not waiver from what the brand promise has been for three decades.”

MSNBC's original name is a vestigial remnant of Microsoft's joint cable venture with NBC News developed in the 1990s, and executives have long considered changing it after the relationship ended.