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Illustration: X/@brianstelter

In huge news for boomers who watch too much Rachel Maddow and the millennials who love them, MSNBC is changing its name to MS NOW.

The folks at Morning Joe did their best to sound absolutely psyched about the new name and logo while announcing the rebrand on Monday morning.

“This shows we’re independent,” claimed Joe Scarborough, adding, “We’re moving in a direction beyond corporate media.”

CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin agreed, gushing, “I’ve always thought about this network, and CNBC, and USA, and actually all of those assets, as insurgent networks. This is an insurgent network. And I love the idea, to be honest with you!”

All it actually shows is that Comcast is spinning off most of its cable channels into a new company (which will also get a new name), as The Wall Street Journal explained:

The shift is part of an effort to distance the network from its NBC heritage and establish its own identity ahead of the planned spinoff of the bulk of NBCUniversal’s cable networks later this year, including CNBC, USA, Oxygen and E!. MSNBC and some other channels that use the iconic peacock logo associated with NBCUniversal brands will also lose that imagery. … The new names and brands will be rolled out later this year, ahead of the completion of the spinoff.

In November, Comcast greenlighted a $7 billion spinoff of its NBCUniversal cable channels. NBC, Bravo and the Peacock streaming service are staying under the NBCUniversal umbrella. The new company will be known as Versant.

Online reactions to MSNBC’s new name have, of course, been largely negative. There’s been a deluge of name changes in media in recent years, and deriding corporate rebrands is one of the things the social-media site formerly known as Twitter does best. So while we must acknowledge that there was little chance of this change being well-received, here’s a look at some of the top complaints about the new-and-maybe-not-improved branding.

“Now” is reminiscent of a deceased streamer.

The name MS NOW brings to mind [HBO Now](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HBO_Now#%3A~%3Atext=HBO+Now+(formerly+named+HBO%2CLaunched), which was somehow different from HBO Go in ways I could never explain though I definitely had one of those streaming services. They eventually became HBO Max, then Max, which recently and very hilariously changed back to HBO Max.

Comcast executives can’t really be blamed for the last bit; they probably came up with MS NOW well before May, when the HBO Max reversion brought this ridiculous name evolution back into the public consciousness. But you probably don’t want to launch your “insurgent” media outlet with a name plucked from the streaming-service graveyard.

“MS” is reminiscent of multiple sclerosis.

Similarly, you always want to make sure your new product doesn’t use the same acronym as a chronic disease.

Sounds like a fundraiser for multiple sclerosis https://t.co/l7xhwiu6x5

— Kyle Smith (@rkylesmith) August 18, 2025

The full name is even worse.

“My Source for News, Opinion, and the World” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.

To be fair, executives were faced with a pretty impossible task: Find a name that doesn’t include “NBC” and won’t be confused with MSN but still tells people, “Yes, this is the place to watch Rachel Maddow.” Presumably that led them to MS NOW, which led to an attempt to pretend the letters actually stand for something. But it’s just a jumble of newsy words that don’t quite make sense when arranged in this order.

The logo looks like it was made in MS Paint.

Scarborough described the network’s new graphic as “very sporty,” but most people said it looked like an outdated political-campaign logo.

That could be construed as a reference to the network’s roots; MSNBC launched in 1996 as a partnership between Microsoft and NBC. Then the technology company divested its stake in the cable channel in 2005 and in MSNBC.com in 2012. But considering that Morning Joe guest Molly Jong-Fast admitted on Monday’s show, “I didn’t know the MS was from Microsoft,” it seems unlikely that many people would make that connection.

MSNBC also missed an opportunity to replace the peacock with this killer logo:

they’ve already got a great new logo for MS NOW pic.twitter.com/WuC5rWcBcI

— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) August 18, 2025

They’re making this too easy for Trump.

Speaking of The Simpsons, it seems that when thinking about whether MS Now could be turned into a derisive nickname, Comcast executives stopped brainstorming after “A.”

Donald Trump has a nasty moniker for just about every media outlet. Many are lazy (“the failing New York Times,” “failing Forbes magazine,” “the failing and money-losing Daily Beast”). But he’s come up with a few clever ways to express his (absolutely abhorrent) disdain for the free press, such as “MSDNC” and “Clinton News Network.”

But Trump didn’t even get the chance to come up with a new insult for MSNBC, one of his most loathed outlets. Within hours of the announcement, MAGA types had already branded it “BS Now.”

X/@Old_SchoolEddie

30 Rock already did it.

For 30 Rock fans, it’s hard to take any of Comcast’s corporate moves seriously, as it all sounds like something Jack Donaghy cooked up as a way to sell more Trivection ovens.

Bluesky/@jontayler

MS NOW: Everything Wrong With MSNBC’s New Name and Logo

MS NOW: Everything Wrong With MSNBC’s New Name and Logo