The news that MSNBC will shed its peacock and NBC branding is nothing short of an identity crisis for the struggling cable channel. The network will reemerge as MSNOW, shorthand for New Opinion World. It’s baffling. The “MS” once had a clear lineage to Microsoft and its joint work with NBC, but with the new add-on, the name sounds more like the 1970s women’s magazine with Gloria Steinem than a serious news network. It also has tinges of News World Communications, of the Moonies.
The original MSNBC sort of made sense when it launched in 1996, but even then it was a bit odd as there was no news judgement associated with Microsoft, except for MSN.com. In the logo, the N of of MSN was the same N as the N of NBC.
MSNBC never rivaled CNN, and could not marry NBC’s broadcast credibility with Microsoft’s technological reach. That being said, the partnership gave the channel instant attention. Mostly, it was carried by the brand goodwill of NBC News.
This latest rebrand comes as part of Versant, a new company that will bundle the spin off channels of USA, CNBC, E!, Oxygen and the Golf Channel under one roof. But the choice of MSNOW will make it have to start again as a brand. NewsNation, the offspring of WGN, has already carved out a place in the independent news space. By comparison, MSNOW feels like a branding committee mistake. The other challenge is the number of consumers who are cutting off cable entirely.
Other options would have made more sense. A nod to NBC’s heritage—the red and blue of the old NBC radio networks—could have worked. MS Blue might have carried some authority (though perhaps a bit melancholic), while Red News would have come off too fiery. Whatever brand, the MS has no equity.
It’s worth remembering that NBC thrived for decades without its peacock. The bird only arrived with color television in the 1950s, and disappeared completely in 1976, only to return as part of the logo in 1979.
USA Networks News is another possibility, though the name is already claimed in radio. There may be a way to make a claim to the brand by adding news briefs to the USA programming, and taking it from there. USA actually ran some news programs in the beginning, including INN.
The other option would have been to borrow the Universal studio identity for the spinoff news channel, as the Universal Newsreel and Universal International News was a major part of movie history. Fox used the 20th Century Fox identity for Fox News, as Fox was well known for its Fox Movietone newsreels.
