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(New York, NY) – At 77 WABC, the newsroom is always buzzing with activity and rumor. The task is to constantly review and sift through that buzz — the determine what’s real, and what’s fake. On Monday, the news team took notice as the television screen tuned to MSNBC indicated a change was coming — to MS NOW.
Ms. Now? Is she being named the next new thing in pop culture? Did she go viral? How can we know their gender?
No, it’s actually just MS NOW. My Source for News, Opinion, and the World. Longtime network anchor Joe Scarborough made the announcement official on the air during his Monday show.
It comes as NBCUniversal has looked to spin off some of its assets — including MSNBC. The cable networks owned by Comcast are being moved into a publicly-traded company called Versant. So, MSNBC — or MS NOW — will no longer be directly owned by NBCUniversal, but it will still exist as a separate entity.
Speculation will undoubtedly continue as to what the future for this new network will be. While it stands to reason that MS NOW will remain a left-leaning network, other changes could be afoot. Many media observers have noted how Stephen Colbert was cancelled due to lagging ratings — all while embraced a far-left or “woke” mindset on his show, rather than embracing comedy.
MSNBC has stood as the standard bearer for left-leaning propaganda since at least 2010 — when it adopted the tagline “lean forward,” as an allusion to its political bend. That was around the time Rachel Maddow was hired from Air America Radio.
But success in the ratings has not typically followed as MSNBC has moved ever further to the left. In Q2 2025, right-leaning Fox News outperformed its “progressive” counterpart. Fox News averaged 2,663,000 total viewers — compared to MSNBC’s 1,008,000. In general, MSNBC’s viewership continues to decline. So network executives undoubtedly hope a name change — and rebrand — can move things in the opposite direction.
