MSNBC is rebranding to MS NOW, but Microsoft’s influence lingers. A look at the history of Microsoft’s role, and how the “MS” lives on.

As the cable news channel MSNBC splits up with NBC News, it is also dropping the NBC from its name. Later this year, the channel will become MS NOW, which stands for My Source for News, Opinion, and the World.

When MSNBC spins off from NBCUniversal (NBCU) by the end of its year to become an independent company, it will have a new name and logo. MSNBC will become My Source News Opinion World (MS NOW), and the multicolored Peacock logo MSNBC now borrows from its outgoing parent company will be replaced with a new red, white, and blue mark.

One brand strategist, Oliver Errichiello, who has advised more than 200 companies, called the rebrand “a big failure.” He noted that it did not retain elements of NBC’s signature peacock, a logo recognized by television viewers for nearly a century, and one that many graphic designers regard as one of the best corporate marks of all time.

MSNBC will soon have a new name and look. The network announced it will rebrand as MS NOW - short for "My Source News Opinion World" - by the end of the year. The change comes as MSNBC splits from NBCUniversal in a $7 billion spinoff deal that will create a new media company

MSNBC will rebrand as MS Now later this year as Comcast separates the network from NBC News, marking a push for independence and a new corporate identity.

Cable news channel MSNBC will rebrand as My Source News Opinion World, or MS NOW, according to internal memos seen by Reuters today, as parent Comcast presses ahead with the planned separation of many NBCUniversal cable networks later this year.

The change marks the end of a partnership that began in 1996, with the network joining CNBC and other channels under the new VERSANT umbrella.

MSNBC will divorce itself from the NBC branding and rename itself “MS NOW” when the channel is spun out by Comcast and relaunched under Versant’s ownership, the company announced on Monday.