{"id":1969047,"date":"2025-08-19T19:00:46","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T19:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=1969047"},"modified":"2025-08-19T19:00:46","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T19:00:46","slug":"with-ms-now-name-change-the-tv-industry-continues-to-rebrand-but-the-truth-is-that-its-given-up-on-branding-altogether","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/with-ms-now-name-change-the-tv-industry-continues-to-rebrand-but-the-truth-is-that-its-given-up-on-branding-altogether\/","title":{"rendered":"With MS NOW name change, the TV industry continues to rebrand \u2014 but the truth is that it\u2019s given up on branding altogether"},"content":{"rendered":"

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MSNBC is undergoing a rebrand. In the coming weeks or months (no date has been announced), the cable news channel will be called My Source News Opinion World, or MS NOW. This, despite previous reports that the network wouldn\u2019t be altering its name. So why the change?<\/p>\n

To \u201caccelerate the distinction between the MSNBC and NBC News organizations,\u201d according to a report by sister network CNBC<\/a>. That\u2019s because Comcast is spinning off the cable channels formerly under the NBCUniversal umbrella \u2014 USA Network, E!, SYFY, and CNBC among them \u2014 into a new company called Versant, a name chosen \u201cto emphasize its versatility and its familiarity with multiple subjects.\u201d<\/p>\n

CNBC even included a handy pronunciation guide<\/a> for the company\u2019s new name: It\u2019s meant to sound like \u201cthe root of the word \u2018conversant.\u2019\u201d If you have to help people figure out how to say it, maybe that\u2019s a problem.<\/p>\n

The decision comes on the heels of several other rebrands within the television industry. A quick recap of recent history, with its cycles of mergers and spinoffs, all of which have come with name changes.<\/p>\n

When HBO initially entered the streaming game, it was called HBO Go, which was available to those already subscribing to the cable channel. But wait, there was also HBO Now, which was a stand-alone streaming service that required no cable subscription. Then the company said, forget all that, whether you\u2019re a cable subscriber or not, we\u2019re changing the name for the whole shebang to HBO Max. A few years later, that was changed to just Max. Only to revert back<\/a> to HBO Max once again in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me started on the various names HBO\u2019s parent company has gone through with each change in ownership, from Warner Communications to Time Warner to AOL Time Warner. Then it became WarnerMedia when it was bought by AT&T, which then offloaded the company four years later to Discovery, which rechristened it Warner Bros. Discovery. Now it\u2019s splitting off its components into two companies \u2014 Warner Bros. and Discovery Global \u2014 in effect rewinding the 2022 merger. Blink and I\u2019m sure there will be more name changes to come.<\/p>\n

Shall we talk about Paramount? Its streamer was originally called CBS All Access. A snappy name, no, but at least it was clear. Then the branding was switched to Paramount+. Then the company added different tiers with their<\/em> own branding. The cheaper, ad-supported tier is called Paramount+ Essential. The premium cable channel Showtime, which Paramount owns, had long been its own entity, but was eventually subsumed into a pricier streaming tier called Paramount+ with Showtime. Earlier this summer, that was changed to Paramount+ Premium. I cover the TV industry for a living and even I\u2019m confused.<\/p>\n

Now MSNBC is becoming MS NOW. A positive: The new acronym is shorter to say. A negative: Reading it in print, the name suggests either an offshoot of Ms. Magazine or an organization providing up-to-date information on multiple sclerosis.<\/p>\n

Laurence Minsky is a business professor at Columbia College Chicago who focuses on brand management and development and has written several books on the topic, including \u201cGlobal Brand Management: A Guide to Developing, Building & Managing an International Brand.\u201d He pointed out that \u201cthe MSNBC name goes back to the days when it was a joint venture between Microsoft and NBC, and that\u2019s been long dissolved.\u201d Ironically, that\u2019s the one thing the new name keeps.<\/p>\n

What does Minsky think of the rebrand? \u201cI don\u2019t know if MS NOW is the name I would have chosen, but it strikes me as an internal decision based on the fact that the cable network is being spun off into a new company that has nothing to do with NBC.\u201d Also: \u201cNew things sound weird to people, but I think MSNBC probably sounded a little weird when it launched, as well. Over time and after multiple exposures, it\u2019s going to feel natural.\u201d<\/p>\n

Companies have been doing this forever. I still think of Google\u2019s parent company as Google, not Alphabet Inc. Same goes for Facebook instead of Meta. Kraft Foods became Mondel\u0113z International. Let\u2019s not forget Tribune Publishing\u2019s own misbegotten and thankfully short-lived rebrand as Tronc. But it\u2019s the original names that most of us remember and still use. Even when it comes to naming rights on buildings, the tendency to use the old name is strong \u2014 looking at you Sears (Willis) Tower and Comiskey (Rate) Park. People can be stubborn, but that\u2019s only because the earlier branding was so effective.<\/p>\n

Why change an established name when a company isn\u2019t, for example, trying to outrun a scandal? Sometimes the reasons are consumer-facing, Minsky said. Sometimes they are business-facing: \u201cA lot of parent companies don\u2019t want the name of a subsidiary in their name because it doesn\u2019t facilitate the selling of that brand. Facebook, the company, can\u2019t sell Facebook the app someday \u2014 if that\u2019s what they decide to do \u2014 without that creating problems. But Meta can.\u201d<\/p>\n

Removing \u201cNBC\u201d from the cable channel\u2019s name could also be a way to distance NBC News from a network with a left-leaning reputation, Misky speculated. \u201cIt might be that NBCUniversal, and NBC as a TV network, doesn\u2019t want to be associated with any political side.\u201d<\/p>\n

We probably have attachments to the idea \u2014 the value \u2014 of branding itself, but also there\u2019s something more practical going on. \u201cBranding matters because it\u2019s a shortcut,\u201d Minsky said. \u201cWe have two systems of thinking. One is reactive and intuitive and it takes very little energy. The other is more thoughtful and takes more time and energy. And what branding does is it takes products into the reactive and intuitive area, so when you hear a brand name, you know what it is, you know what it stands for, and you can respond.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll never understand why the television industry has abandoned the advantages of branding. I\u2019d include TV theme songs<\/a>, which are no longer standard, as part of that diminishment. Before streaming, audiences associated certain shows, even certain lineups<\/em>, with specific networks. Must See TV was NBC\u2019s Thursday nights. TGIF was ABC\u2019s Friday nights. That distinctive identity helped viewers keep track of various shows, instead of facing a morass of undifferentiated content.<\/p>\n

These days, if you mention a show title, chances are you\u2019ll be asked: Where is that streaming? Nobody knows. Who can remember? Why should we, there\u2019s no branding because TV series are disconnected from the brand of the streamer.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s try, anyway. Netflix is the Walmart of streamers, offering everything under the sun; most of it is not great, but it\u2019ll suffice. Apple is the closest to HBO\u2019s prestige reputation, with big budgets and big stars. There\u2019s a perception is that Apple doesn\u2019t promote its shows, which is inaccurate; none<\/em> of the streamers promote their shows and Apple is no better or worse on this front. Disney+ is Marvel and \u201cStar Wars.\u201d Paramount+ is the Taylor Sheridan network. And Hulu and Peacock are \u2026 sorry, I\u2019m coming up empty.<\/p>\n

These are very sad and unformed brand identities and it\u2019s baffling that media companies are fine with that.<\/p>\n

\u201cA strong brand eliminates the need to expend the energy to make a choice,\u201d said Minsky. \u201cYour selection is made by intuition instead.\u201d Whereas binge watching on a streamer \u201celiminates the need for a strong platform or channel brand, because once you\u2019re watching a show, the easiest choice is to just keep watching it. The options at the end of the series \u2014 \u2018you might also enjoy\u2019 based on your previous viewing \u2014 would then kick the viewer over to a new show.\u201d<\/p>\n

Branding is hard, he said, It takes \u201cvision, time, discipline, effort, and consistency. So, essentially, data and algorithms have replaced the need for branding in streaming.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

(Nina Metz is a Chicago Tribune critic who covers TV and film.)<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MSNBC is undergoing a rebrand. In the coming weeks or months (no date has been announced), the cable news channel will be called My Source News Opinion World, or MS NOW. This, despite previous reports that the network wouldn\u2019t be altering its name. So why the change? To \u201caccelerate the distinction between the MSNBC and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1969048,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[349567,349566,21917,349565,56372,108988,309230,327177],"class_list":["post-1969047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-branding","tag-cable-news-channel","tag-hbo","tag-laurence-minsky","tag-msnbc","tag-nbc-news","tag-paramount","tag-streaming-service"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/With-MS-NOW-name-change-the-TV-industry-continues-to.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1969047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1969047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1969047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1969048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1969047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1969047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1969047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}