• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, over 1 hour ago

MS NOW (formerly MSNBC) is being pushed to the side as a business -- being spun out of Comcast, along with other cable networks.

There is a plan. And we can assume that other aging cable TV networks have a similar approach.

It seems there is a plan to dramatically ramp up the business for the still highly viewed 24/7 cable news TV network. 

MS NOW will have a new direct-to-consumer (D2C) offering next summer under the new brand name.

As MSNBC, the network has had its own mobile app for a while now -- as well as its sister network CNBC.

But the new business plan looks to make this D2C effort much bigger than its previous iteration.

The new service intends to offer up podcasts and YouTube-centric long- and short-form video as well as interactive content and features.

Reports suggest that MS NOW President Rebecca Kutler, under its new Versant corporate company, is opening the spigot in a push for more digital business extension going forward.

Versant becomes a publicly traded company on January 2, 2026.

Looking at the bigger picture, now we can see a different spin on what the broad spectrum of legacy and declining cable TV businesses may be doing to resurrect themselves as more independent businesses.

This would give hope to what some companies may envision for the future -- for the most part what Paramount Skydance’s future plans are to keep and revamp its cable TV networks.

This is a somewhat different approach to that of Comcast Corp. and Warner Bros. Discovery, which are both currently in the process of spinning off their respective cable TV networks as separate companies.

The goal is that operating as a smaller company, these networks will in theory have better flexibility to make more aggressive, entrepreneurial, real-time changes to their operations.

Pushing more digital, social media, AI-focused business that adapts to modern media consumers makes sense.

Execution of that plan, of course, is the final judge and jury.

You can now wonder why changing its longtime seemingly valuable brand name -- MSNBC -- to MS NOW might make more sense.

Rebranding cable TV networks with new business extensions? Guessing we are only at stage one of those plans.