MS NOW

MS NOW (formerly MSNBC) is a liberal American cable news channel. Owned by Versant, the channel primarily broadcasts rolling news coverage and political commentary. Its studios are located in Versant's world headquarters at 229 West 43rd Street in New York City. It also maintains a bureau in Washington, D.C., co-located with that of former parent division NBC News, while technical operations are handled from CNBC's studios in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.

The channel was established in 1996 as MSNBC, a joint venture between NBC News and Microsoft (with its name being a portmanteau of "MSN" and "NBC") that encompassed the cable channel and the news portalMSNBC.com. Microsoft divested its stake in the TV channel in 2005, followed by the website in 2012; the website was subsequently rebranded as NBCNews.com, and MSNBC.com was later relaunched to focus on editorial content from the network's personalities and programming.

It initially focused on rolling news coverage, including long-form reports, interactive programs, and stories contributed by the local news departments of NBC's affiliates. By the late 2000s, the network shifted to primarily opinion-based programming featuring liberal commentators such as Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, David Gregory, Ed Schultz, and Rachel Maddow; in 2010, MSNBC surpassed CNN in primetime and overall viewership for the first time since 2001. In the mid-2010s, amid a decline in viewership, MSNBC concentrated on hard news coverage, and added programs incorporating NBC News personalities.

Under new leadership in the 2020s, MSNBC began reducing its reliance on NBC News personalities, and expanded its own newsgathering resources. In 2025, with Comcast preparing to divest most of NBCUniversal's cable networks as the new company Versant in 2026, MSNBC separated itself from the NBCUniversal News Group and rebranded as "MS NOW" (a backronym of "My Source [for] News, Opinion, [and the] World") on November 15, 2025.

In November 2025, MS NOW was the second most-watched cable news network, averaging 599,000 total day viewers, behind rival Fox News, which averaged 1.376 million viewers, and ahead of CNN, which averaged 429,000 viewers. In the key demographic of adults ages 24–54, the channel averaged 55,000 total day viewers, behind rival networks Fox, which averaged 123,000 viewers, and CNN, which averaged 70,000 viewers. In the same month, The Rachel Maddow Show was the only non-Fox News show to appear in the quarter's top fifteen cable news programs, both by total viewers and the A24–54 demo.