Hearts & Minds: “NOW or Never: MSNBC’s Rebrand and the Perils of Reinvention.”

MSNBC is rebranding to MS NOW. It’s always fraught, renaming. No one likes change. We humans prefer what we’re used to, new represents the uncertain and unknown. So, they were bound to provoke a backlash. There is also something about media titles that prompts an extra pile in - rivals love to snipe and opine. I know, I’ve been there myself several times. Do we drop ‘Daily’ and ‘Sunday’ if the Express is going seven days? Should we remove the ‘The’ from ‘The Independent’? Should it be lower case or begin with a cap? Should we choose a different font? If The Independent has a briefer, more accessible, cheaper, offspring what should it be called? Coke went for Diet Coke; are we right to go with the i? Questions, and there have been many more, and no perfect answers.

They had to do something because MSNBC is divorcing from NBCUniversal to become part of VERSANT, the new cable spin-off (Versant as a name is another topic). MS NOW it is. The roast is saying Microsoft Now. Although interestingly, when this was raised in a discussion on ‘Morning Joe’ on MSNBC – nothing like the media beating up itself – one panellist said she had no idea ‘MS’ stood for Microsoft. It could be worse and mean, as was suggested on Reddit: give me multiple sclerosis immediately. You get the picture.

Originally, MSNBC was formed jointly between Microsoft and NBC, hence those initial letters. So, it did stand for Microsoft. Not anymore. The comms says MS means ‘My Source’ and the NOW is News Opinion World. On the logo for emphasis, the words are separated by an | or a vertical bar to form My Source | News | Opinion | World. That might have rung alarm bells since typing | requires shift + backward-slash. Most people will opt not to bother and just stick with MS NOW.

The difficulty is that while NOW may stand for three words, it is also a word. It’s an adverb, conjunction and adjective. While one meaning is at the present time, another is to add emphasis in a command, as in I want it now! That was the choice of Jimmy Goldsmith when the financier named his ill-fated weekly alternative to The Times and The Sunday Times which were shut for a period during a union dispute. NOW! lasted for less than two years before disappearing.

Chris Blackhurst is one of the UK’s foremost business journalists. He was previously Editor of The Independent and City Editor of the Evening Standard.