Who’d have thought MS would outlast NBC? Besides it’s not the MS it as soon as was.
A plan to rebrand the MSNBC cable channel to “MS NOW,” announced Monday, is the newest twist in a company media saga that began almost three a long time in the past, when Microsoft and NBC launched a three way partnership that mixed the tech large’s web ambitions with the TV community’s information pedigree.
Microsoft minimize ties way back. It dropped its stake within the MSNBC cable channel to 18% in 2005 and totally exited two years later, when NBC acquired the remaining shares. It divested from the net aspect in 2012, though MSNBC.com — later NBCNews.com — nonetheless operated a newsroom within the Seattle area for some time after that.
Regardless of the break up, the MS in MSNBC has lingered as a reminder of that 1996 partnership — and it’ll proceed to reside on within the new title, albeit with a unique that means. “MS NOW” stands for “My Supply for Information, Opinion and the World.”
The rebrand outcomes from MSNBC’s spinoff from NBCUniversal, a part of a $7 billion restructuring of Comcast’s cable property. It’s meant to eradicate confusion with NBC Information and provides the cable community a definite id because it enters its subsequent section below Versant, the brand new umbrella for former NBCU cable networks.
Within the meantime, Microsoft has taken a unique path in media. The corporate’s Search and Information Promoting enterprise — together with Bing, Microsoft Begin, and integrations with its Edge browser and Copilot AI assistant — generated $13.9 billion in income in fiscal 2025, almost 5% of Microsoft’s whole income of $282 billion.
After all, that’s not precisely on the size of Google in search and on-line adverts, and it’s hardly the following Workplace or Home windows within the scheme of Microsoft’s enterprise. However even and not using a stake in a serious media model, the corporate has discovered its personal place within the behind-the-scenes infrastructure for digital information and data.
And we’ve nonetheless bought that MS as a reminder of the previous — for NOW, at the least.
发布者：Todd Bishop，转转请注明出处：https://robotalks.cn/from-msnbc-to-ms-now-legacy-of-microsofts-news-experiment-echoes-in-networks-new-name/
