In this article

CMCSA

Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT

MSNBC will change its name later this year and drop the storied peacock image from its branding — the first real public-facing changes in Versant's upcoming separation from Comcast's NBCUniversal.

The political news network will be renamed My Source News Opinion World, or MS Now, Versant Chief Executive Officer Mark Lazarus wrote in an internal memo to employees that was seen by CNBC.

In January, Lazarus told a group of MSNBC staffers that the network wouldn't change its name. But during the past few months of transition planning, NBCUniversal leaders decided MSNBC should take on a new name "to accelerate the distinction between the MSNBC and NBC News organizations," Lazarus wrote in the memo Monday.

See Full Page