Cracker Barrel may have course-corrected after it reversed its much lampooned decision to change its logo, a reversal praised even by President Trump. But MSNBC — which has been the source of endless ridicule since it announced a forthcoming name change to MS NOW — doesn’t have that option. It must forge ahead without the NBC branding of the name and the iconic peacock logo.  

The liberal network is being spun off — along with all but one of Comcast’s cable channels — under a new company, Versant, since the cable portfolio was dragging down Comcast’s stock price. MSNBC is not only losing its access to NBC News’s correspondents, news gathering resources, and back office, it’s also now being forced to drop NBC from its name and abandon the logo.

When the spin-off was first announced in November 2024, MSNBC’s new executive team assured a rattled staff they could keep their name. Then, nine months later, that changed. MSNBC announced that its new name will be MS NOW, which stands for “My Source for News, Opinion and the World.” 

The change was reportedly forced by NBC News, which had long griped that its association with MSNBC cost it any pretense of objectivity. Business news channel CNBC, however, is being allowed to keep its name, though it will lose the Peacock logo.  

An attorney versed in media law and contracts, Paul Rapp, told the Sun that MSNBC likely has no legal ground to fight to keep its name before it is spun off, as it appears to be a contractual obligation as part of the spin-off.

“As MSNBC has always been legally tied to its parent NBC, it’s hard to see a viable argument that it should keep the name,” Mr. Rapp said.

That a company would change its name after it is spun off is not uncommon. In 2020, 20th Century Fox changed its name to simply 20th Century after it was acquired by the Walt Disney Company from Fox. Although the renaming of the iconic studio was a big deal in Hollywood, that case is slightly different, as most movie-goers are not watching movies because of the studios that produced them.

Perhaps more notable was the spin-off of Time Warner Cable from Time Warner in 2009. Time Warner Cable kept its name as a separate company for seven years, until it was bought by Charter Communications and renamed as Spectrum. In that case, the Time Warner Cable name had become a liability, associated with poor service and high fees.

Regarding MSNBC’s name change, the decision to let CNBC keep its name hangs over the spin-off, as there seems to be a disparity in how the two networks are being treated (with MSNBC perhaps being cast off due to it harsh partisanship, while the CNBC brand is less toxic). First, a history lesson: When CNBC launched as a co-venture between NBC and Cablevision in 1989, it was named the Consumer News and Business Channel, with the name’s acronym conveniently — and likely deliberately — matching the names of its parents.  In 1991, NBC acquired Cablevision’s stake in the financial network, and it started to use the acronym CNBC. 

MSNBC was similarly started as a joint venture. In a deal between NBC and Microsoft, the network was launched in 1996 as a cutting-edge, internet-friendly news channel (the channel would not shift to liberal opinion for more than a decade), with its name a combination of “MS” for Microsoft and NBC. In 2005, Microsoft began to wind down its venture with NBC, but MSNBC was allowed to keep the first two letters of its name, even without Microsoft’s involvement, because in its near-decade of existence to that point, “MS” had become part of the network’s well-known brand. Twenty years later, the left-wing cable network is not so lucky and is rebranding as MS NOW (keeping the Microsoft name, despite Microsoft completely divesting of MSNBC in 2012, but forced to lose “NBC”).  

An MSNBC host, Rachel Maddow, and other media journalists have suggested that CNBC is able to keep its name because it will not be a direct competitor of NBC News.

“We’re not just separating from NBC News in corporate terms, we’re competing with them now. So I think the distinction is going to be good for us,” Ms. Maddow told Variety. 

Ms. Maddow, who’s now paid $25 million a year to work one day a week, is likely referring to MSNBC setting up its own, modest newsgathering operation — with an overwhelming focus on Washington — hiring far-left correspondents and hosts such as Eugene Daniels from Politico and Jacqueline Alemany and Carol Leonnig from the Washington Post. Some, but not all, of the most liberal NBC News reporters, such as “immigration reporter” Jacob Soboroff, are moving over to MSNBC. Meanwhile, an anti-Trump White House correspondent, Yamiche Alcindor, and a liberal political analyst, Steve Kornacki, are sticking with NBC News.

But despite the continuing presence of far-left journalists such as Ms. Alcindor and the “Meet the Press” host, Kristen Welker, at NBC News, managers at NBCUniversal wanted to purify their brand from the constant chaos and controversies at MSNBC.

The new name MS NOW has been widely ridiculed, and the decision to strip the network of the name it has had for nearly three decades is raising eyebrows.

A conservative commentator, Greg Price, wrote on X, “‘MS Now’ sounds like a Microsoft product that’s been discontinued since 1996.”

Journalist Yashar Ali shared the name change and, recognizing the ridicule it had inspired, informed his audience that it was “not a joke.”

Mr. Rapp tells the Sun, “I, and I think most people, have assumed that, like MSNBC, the ‘NBC’ in its name stood for ‘National Broadcasting Company.’ Given that, it seems inconsistent that CNBC isn’t changing its name while MSNBC is.”

If, down the road, MS NOW executives decide the name is as bad as many commentators and fans (and critics) of the network say it is, they may have a difficult but not impossible time getting their original name back. 

Mr. Rapp says, “If MS NOW were to suddenly and unilaterally change its name back to MSNBC, NBC would have a viable claim of trademark dilution and false association, as well as breach of contract if Versant contractually committed with NBC to the new name.”

However, he said that NBC’s claim would be “undercut by the fact that CNBC was allowed to continue to use its original name.”

“It would be one of those messy trademark suits that would involve consumer surveys that gauge the public’s understanding of the meanings of the names,” Mr. Rapp said. 

MSNBC declined to comment.