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The decades-long marriage between NBC and MSNBC is steadily headed towards a corporate divorce as parent company Comcast continues its NBCUniversal split, separating the famed Peacock brand from the majority of its cable assets.
Last year, Comcast announced it was spinning off its cable networks into a separate company, now named Versant. Versant will be the new home for MSNBC, CNBC, USA Network, Oxygen, E!, SYFY and the Golf Channel among other assets, while NBCUniversal maintains NBC News, the NBC News Now streaming network, Telemundo and Bravo.
For years, NBC and MSNBC were joined at the hip as the cable network relied on the news-gathering operation and talent of its sister broadcast network. But the separation is expected to be completed by the end of 2025.
So who gets what in the messy divorce?
MSNBC TO CHANGE NAME TO ‘MS NOW’ IN COMCAST SPINOFF DEAL
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and NBC’s Savannah Guthrie will soon no longer be colleagues under the NBCUniversal umbrella as Comcast spins off most of its cable networks into a separate company. (Virginia Sherwood/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images; Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images)
The Peacock
One of the looming questions over MSNBC’s future was whether it would keep its name and the iconic “Peacock” symbol. That answer came Monday when it was announced that MSNBC will be renamed MS NOW, an acronym for “My Source for News, Opinion, and the World.”
A new logo was also unveiled, replacing the fashionable rainbow bird with a striped flag with a red, white and blue color scheme.
Notably, CNBC, which always stood for “Consumer News and Business Channel,” will keep its name.
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MSNBC announced it is rebranding as “MS NOW” after its formal separation with NBC News. (Versant)
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York City’s Rockefeller Center has always been the home of NBC, and MSNBC when the cable network launched in 1996.
But in the divorce, NBC gets to keep the house. MSNBC is packing up its boxes and will temporarily relocate to nearby 43rd Street until it finds a permanent home.
It will also vacate NBC’s Washington, D.C., bureau near the Capitol Building and establish its own office space.
NBC News will maintain its presence at Rockefeller Center while MSNBC will find a new home in New York City. (Joseph A. Wulfsohn/Fox News Digital)
The Talent
Throughout the NBC-MSNBC marriage, many of the hosts and correspondents hopped between the broadcast and cable networks on a regular basis to provide coverage of the latest breaking news. MSNBC has been on a hiring spree in recent months since NBC will maintain the news apparatus post-divorce, most notably poaching veteran journalist Carol Leonnig from the embattled Washington Post.
But for the talent whose roles blurred the lines between both networks, a custody battle has ensued.
NBC nabbed Steve Kornacki, the Peacock network’s data and polling expert who had become a fixture on MSNBC’s election night coverage. Andrea Mitchell, who ended her long-running MSNBC program “Andrea Mitchell Reports” in February, will remain with NBC as its chief Washington and foreign affairs correspondent.
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Veteran NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell ended her long-running MSNBC program in February and will remain with the Peacock network after the corporate divorce. (MSNBC screenshot)
Similarly, José Díaz-Balart departed MSNBC earlier this year but will continue anchoring “NBC Nightly News Saturday” as well as Noticias Telemundo.
Meanwhile, the NBC reporters who will be joining MS NOW include justice beat reporters Ken Dilanian and Ryan Reilly, national correspondent Jacob Soboroff, White House correspondent Vaughn Hillyard and internet reporter Brandy Zadrozny. A slew of other staffers will also make the leap from NBC to MS NOW.
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Everyone on MSNBC’s current lineup will remain on the network through its transformation into MS NOW, including Stephanie Ruhle, who previously served as a senior business analyst for NBC News while hosting “The 11th Hour” on cable.
Willie Geist, who currently hosts “Sunday TODAY” for NBC and co-hosts “Morning Joe” on MSNBC, has landed a rare deal where he is able to maintain both roles at each network after the separation, a source familiar with the matter told Fox News Digital.
