Commentary
Cable News Name-Change Game: Just Drop Two Letters
- by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, August 4, 2015
It has lower viewer ratings than Fox News and now CNN. Mass changes in hosts and programs seem to offer up a lot of confusion for viewers. Recently the network has canceled a number of shows and let go some on-air talent.
Back to its name: The “MS” part of “MSNBC” doesn’t make sense. After a long, unusual partnership between Microsoft and NBC -- which started way back in 1996 -- NBC finally bought out its partner in 2012. Microsoft has nothing to do with the news channel now.
A New York Daily Newsreport suggests new NBC News chief Andy Lack is considering the change. Why now? Most likely it has to do with MSNBC current lagging the competition.
It is tricky to rename a cable network -- especially a longtime network with a big name. A likely new moniker: Simply NBC News or NBC News Channel. Right now NBC News is the business name for all NBC’s news activities, including all its broadcast news programs, including “NBC Nightly News,” MSNBC, CNBC, and all their digital extensions.
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Consider that when NBC took over OLN after Comcast bought NBCUniversal, it went with NBC Sports Network, now just called NBCSN.
Many media companies want to make things easier for consumers to access their content/programs -- especially across platforms — in reference to brand names they might know -- like NBC Sports or NBC News.
Consider that MSNBC is also taking on Brian Williams, who just came off a long suspension from “NBC Nightly News.” So both Williams and MSNBC need a facelift. Big fans of the network might welcome it.
The network has been “a place for politics” -- its most recent tagline. If NBC gives a clearer identity of what the network is now, perhaps as a more newsy channel -- especially with a presidential race soon to come -- viewers might come back.
Wayne Friedman is West Coast Editor of MediaPost. You can reach Wayne at wayne@mediapost.com.
Yes Change it please
The demise of Brian Williams is a coup for MSNBC or whatever it becomes. Launching a new moniker with a talent albeit one with a blemish on his record could bring in the audience they lost and/or a new viewer. At least there will be interest from those of us that just want to see how Brian Williams is used.
Nowhere to go but up.
Reductio ad absurdum
Want to improve ratings? Change what? The name? The so-called "identity?" Are you kidding? This has got to be a joke!
Lesson One: The names of things do not affect what they really are.
Let's start with Shakespeare. He was a master of words and actions.
We’ll reflect specifically on the words of "Romeo & Juliet" Act II, Scene II, Page II. As in life, the words of real wisdom are spoken by a woman for the case at hand. Juliet implores us to understand:
"The thing we call a rose would smell just as sweet if we called it by any other name. Romeo would be just as perfect even if he wasn't called Romeo.
Romeo, lose your name. Trade in your name - which really has nothing to do with you ...."
MSNBC is no rose. And that smell is not sweet. Rather what you smell is a long-lasting stench [occasionally interrupted by some truly brilliant and sweet talent & skill (e.g., Maddow & O'Donnell)] emanating from the longstanding foolishness of NBC Management, not the dedication of real NBC News staffers.
(To be continued immeditaely in the next post.... Thanks for your patience and understanding.)
Reductio ad absurdum (continued)
... MSNBC is no rose. And that smell is not sweet. Rather what you smell is a long-lasting stench [occasionally interrupted by some truly brilliant and sweet talent & skill (e.g., Maddow & O'Donnell)] emanating from the longstanding foolishness of NBC Management,
not the dedication of real NBC News staffers.
That awful aroma goes all the way back to late 1995, early 1996, when I discussed with Andy Lack the discernment process that ought be used to formulate the right name for the channel that was supposed to be like no other, an innovative channel for the coming digital news era to be launched July 15, 1996.
Well, I shall spare you the comedy and drama and save it for the book ... that cannot be written. However, what the good journalists at NBC News have always endured where this venture was concerned is a sense of mission and sadness. It could not be otherwise. MSNBC has always been a schizophrenic undertaking that was reflected by its name, not shaped by it.
It's summertime, so I'll stop here. All that's left to say tonight is that if you want to change your identity, you don't change the color of your hair, your legal name or your home address.
As Peter Drucker counseled as far back as 1967, all you need is "to do the right thingsAND to do things right."
It's always been that simple, but it's never been that easy.
"Good Night, and Good Luck"
As long as MSNBC is going to trade in liberal commentary, they will never drop the MS from the name, because that would then paint the NBC network itself as a liberal network. Snarky retorts and harumphs aside, NBC does not want that to happen.
Chuck,
Your naivete is quaint & wrong.
Leave it alone.
nick