The serious trend behind MSNBC’s silly new name

Goodbye MSBNC, and hello “MS NOW.” In an announcement that has triggered widespread befuddlement and mockery, the progressive cable news network is getting rebranded. The new name isn’t meant to call to mind Microsoft or the honorific “Ms.” Instead, in the style of congressional bill-naming, MS NOW is purportedly an acronym for the following mouthful: “My Source for News, Opinion, and the World.” Underneath this seemingly silly story, though, are currents of major change — and fear — in the mainstream media. Because both MSNBC and its fellow political news network CNN are meeting the same fate; they’re being jettisoned by the big corporate behemoths that currently own them. Those corporate behemoths — Comcast owns MSNBC, while Warner Bros. owns CNN — have legitimate business reasons for making this change. Each is offloading these political news channels, as well as various other cable networks, to a new separate company, called by some a “SpinCo” (spin-off company) and by others a “ShitCo” (no explanation needed). This is because cable news is viewed as a declining business. Yet there’s another clear implication. President Donald Trump loathes both MSNBC and CNN, and his administration has been willing and eager to wage personal and political vendettas against their corporate owners. Take, for instance, how Paramount had to grovel before Trump because he was annoyed at Paramount-owned CBS. The Federal Communications Commission held up Paramount’s merger deal until the company agreed to pay a $16 million settlement in a bogus lawsuit Trump had brought against 60 Minutes. So now, with these spinoffs, Comcast and Warner Bros. will no longer have to worry about being punished by the federal government for MSNBC and CNN’s coverage. To be clear: Comcast’s spin-off of MSNBC and other cable properties was already in the works before Trump won his second term. And there’s obviously no political motivation behind Comcast ditching its other cable properties, like the USA Network, SYFY, Oxygen, the Golf Channel, CNBC, and E! (Comcast is keeping NBC News and Universal Studios.) But since Trump began his second term, the company’s thinking has apparently evolved on one point: whether MSNBC can keep its name. Back in January, the new CEO of MSNBC’s SpinCo, Mark Lazarus, said that MSNBC would keep its name after the spin-off. So the announcement Monday of the new MS NOW name was a change of plan. This would, of course, create more obvious distance between whatever “MS NOW” is up to and the existing NBC media empire. CNBC, in contrast, will get to keep its name despite being spun off. We don’t know whether that’s because they’re less likely to displease Trump, less likely to cause problems for NBC’s brand, or some other reason. What we do know is that, this year, Trump has normalized the weaponization of the government against corporations who have displeased him with shocking speed. For now, at least, this has to be part of companies’ strategic calculations. Placating the president is the new cost of doing business in the United States of America.