A WAKE TO REMEMBER: MSNBC Bids Farewell to Its Dying Audience.
The Hammerstein Ballroom in midtown Manhattan hums with the sound of walkers, canes, and Medicare-approved stability sneakers shuffling on the brocade carpet. Several busloads worth of gray-haired radicals are milling about the historic auditorium. Some have shelled out thousands of dollars to be here for a chance to see their favorite MSNBC personalities denounce Donald Trump in person. Liquor drinks are extra. The exorbitantly priced bar opens at 10:30 a.m. We’re going to need it.
“MSNBC Live ’25: This Is Who We Are” is the failing left-wing network’s second live offering in as many years. Last year’s event was largely focused on how to stop Trump from winning the election and canceling democracy. This year’s summit is even more existential, if you can believe it. Two weeks after Trump’s decisive victory in 2024, MSNBC parent company Comcast announced it was cutting ties with the network. It will soon be required to ditch its NBC affiliation and rebrand as MS NOW (My Source for News, Opinion, and the World). The name change becomes official next month, but they’ve kept the old one so as not to confuse their elderly fans.
Other aspects of the event planning—spearheaded by Luke Russert, the boy-faced nepo baby—were less accommodating to a demographic that hates inconvenience and loves to complain. More than a few mobility-challenged attendees griped about having to walk down a flight of stairs to use the bathroom. Ushers were overheard discussing how to minimize injuries.
Both TV Insider and Cord Cutters News say that MS NOW name change will occur on November 14th. Left-leaning Hollywood bible Variety collates a surprising amount of snark about the name change: MSNBC Rebrand to ‘MS NOW’ Draws Derision, Confusion.
Social media users also immediately noticed the new name’s unfortunate association with the disease multiple sclerosis. “Sounds like a medical issue,” one user on X said about MS NOW. On Monday, “multiple sclerosis” was the No. 4 trending topic on X in the U.S.
In addition, some people read the “MS NOW” name as “Ms. Now.” And that continues “the problem they’ve faced since inception (that the ‘MS’ was an indicator that this was a network designed for women viewers ),” former MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann wrote in an email — an issue that “has now been doubled (‘NOW? Like the National Organization For Women?’).” Olbermann, who left MSNBC in 2011, claimed he told the network to change its name “when I got there in 1997… I’m glad to see that my interoffice mail envelope finally got to the 52nd floor of 30 Rock.”
Others inevitably compared the MSNBC-MS NOW renaming to Warner Bros. Discovery’s switch from HBO Max to Max and then back to HBO Max. “After MS Now will be MS Go, and then MS Max, and then just MS,” quipped Washington Post media reporter Scott Nover.
The popular LizaMinnelliOutlives account on X duly noted that Minnelli, 79, has outlived the MSNBC name.
Meanwhile, it isn’t clear what MS NOW’s web destination will be at this point. The current website at “msnow.com” includes the text “Motorized Snow vehicles (SnowMobile)” and says in Korean: “A snowmobile is a vehicle that travels on snow. Equipped with skis and tracked wheels, it is used for winter recreation and transportation. Also known as a motor sled or snow machine. In Korea, it is used for maintenance, rescue operations, and cargo transport at ski resorts and other locations.”
If you type “ms-now.com” into your browser, you are redirected to meal-delivery service Marley Spoon, which is affiliated with Martha Stewart.
It was quite a weekend for MSNBC. Are they trying to get all the craziness out of their systems as the iceberg hoves into view?
● MSNBC Compares ‘No Kings’ Critics To Nazis.
● Robert De Niro slams Stephen Miller — who is Jewish — as a ‘Nazi’ in MSNBC rant.
● Enraging Bull: Actor Robert DeNiro Says Rural Americans Need the ‘Truth’ from MSNBC and Legacy Media.
● Actor Robert De Niro drops f-bomb on MSNBC’s ‘The Weekend.’