MSNBC is undergoing a rebrand. In the coming weeks or months (no date has been announced), the cable news channel will be called My Source News Opinion World, or MS NOW. This, despite previous reports that the network wouldn’t be altering its name. So why the change?

To “accelerate the distinction between the MSNBC and NBC News organizations,” according to a report by sister network CNBC. That’s because Comcast is spinning off the cable channels formerly under the NBCUniversal umbrella — USA Network, E!, SYFY, and CNBC among them — into a new company called Versant, a name chosen “to emphasize its versatility and its familiarity with multiple subjects.”

CNBC even included a handy pronunciation guide for the company’s new name: It’s meant to sound like “the root of the word ‘conversant.’” If you have to help people figure out how to say it, maybe that’s a problem.

The decision comes on the heels of several other rebrands within the television industry. A quick recap of recent history, with its cycles of mergers and spinoffs, all of which have come with name changes.

When HBO initially entered the streaming game, it was called HBO Go, which was available to those already subscribing to the cable channel. But wait, there was also HBO Now, which was a stand-alone streaming service that required no cable subscription. Then the company said, forget all that, whether you’re a cable subscriber or not, we’re changing the name for the whole shebang to HBO Max. A few years later, that was changed to just Max. Only to revert back to HBO Max once again in recent weeks.

Don’t get me started on the various names HBO’s parent company has gone through with each change in ownership, from Warner Communications to Time Warner to AOL Time Warner. Then it became WarnerMedia when it was bought by AT&T, which then offloaded the company four years later to Discovery, which rechristened it Warner Bros. Discovery. Now it’s splitting off its components into two companies — Warner Bros. and Discovery Global — in effect rewinding the 2022 merger. Blink and I’m sure there will be more name changes to come.

Shall we talk about Paramount? Its streamer was originally called CBS All Access. A snappy name, no, but at least it was clear. Then the branding was switched to Paramount+. Then the company added different tiers with their own branding. The cheaper, ad-supported tier is called Paramount+ Essential. The premium cable channel Showtime, which Paramount owns, had long been its own entity, but was eventually subsumed into a pricier streaming tier called Paramount+ with Showtime. Earlier this summer, that was changed to Paramount+ Premium. I cover the TV industry for a living and even I’m confused.

Now MSNBC is becoming MS NOW. A positive: The new acronym is shorter to say. A negative: Reading it in print, the name suggests either an offshoot of Ms. Magazine or an organization providing up-to-date information on multiple sclerosis.

Laurence Minsky is a business professor at Columbia College Chicago who focuses on brand management and development and has written several books on the topic, including “Global Brand Management: A Guide to Developing, Building & Managing an International Brand.” He pointed out that “the MSNBC name goes back to the days when it was a joint venture between Microsoft and NBC, and that’s been long dissolved.” Ironically, that’s the one thing the new name keeps.

What does Minsky think of the rebrand? “I don’t know if MS NOW is the name I would have chosen, but it strikes me as an internal decision based on the fact that the cable network is being spun off into a new company that has nothing to do with NBC.” Also: “New things sound weird to people, but I think MSNBC probably sounded a little weird when it launched, as well. Over time and after multiple exposures, it’s going to feel natural.”

Companies have been doing this forever. I still think of Google’s parent company as Google, not Alphabet Inc. Same goes for Facebook instead of Meta. Kraft Foods became Mondelēz International. Let’s not forget Tribune Publishing’s own misbegotten and thankfully short-lived rebrand as Tronc. But it’s the original names that most of us remember and still use. Even when it comes to naming rights on buildings, the tendency to use the old name is strong — looking at you Sears (Willis) Tower and Comiskey (Rate) Park. People can be stubborn, but that’s only because the earlier branding was so effective.

Why change an established name when a company isn’t, for example, trying to outrun a scandal? Sometimes the reasons are consumer-facing, Minsky said. Sometimes they are business-facing: “A lot of parent companies don’t want the name of a subsidiary in their name because it doesn’t facilitate the selling of that brand. Facebook, the company, can’t sell Facebook the app someday — if that’s what they decide to do — without that creating problems. But Meta can.”

Removing “NBC” from the cable channel’s name could also be a way to distance NBC News from a network with a left-leaning reputation, Misky speculated. “It might be that NBCUniversal, and NBC as a TV network, doesn’t want to be associated with any political side.”

We probably have attachments to the idea — the value — of branding itself, but also there’s something more practical going on. “Branding matters because it’s a shortcut,” Minsky said. “We have two systems of thinking. One is reactive and intuitive and it takes very little energy. The other is more thoughtful and takes more time and energy. And what branding does is it takes products into the reactive and intuitive area, so when you hear a brand name, you know what it is, you know what it stands for, and you can respond.”

I’ll never understand why the television industry has abandoned the advantages of branding. I’d include TV theme songs, which are no longer standard, as part of that diminishment. Before streaming, audiences associated certain shows, even certain lineups, with specific networks. Must See TV was NBC’s Thursday nights. TGIF was ABC’s Friday nights. That distinctive identity helped viewers keep track of various shows, instead of facing a morass of undifferentiated content.

These days, if you mention a show title, chances are you’ll be asked: Where is that streaming? Nobody knows. Who can remember? Why should we, there’s no branding because TV series are disconnected from the brand of the streamer.

Let’s try, anyway. Netflix is the Walmart of streamers, offering everything under the sun; most of it is not great, but it’ll suffice. Apple is the closest to HBO’s prestige reputation, with big budgets and big stars. There’s a perception is that Apple doesn’t promote its shows, which is inaccurate; none of the streamers promote their shows and Apple is no better or worse on this front. Disney+ is Marvel and “Star Wars.” Paramount+ is the Taylor Sheridan network. And Hulu and Peacock are … sorry, I’m coming up empty.

These are very sad and unformed brand identities and it’s baffling that media companies are fine with that.

“A strong brand eliminates the need to expend the energy to make a choice,” said Minsky. “Your selection is made by intuition instead.” Whereas binge watching on a streamer “eliminates the need for a strong platform or channel brand, because once you’re watching a show, the easiest choice is to just keep watching it. The options at the end of the series — ‘you might also enjoy’ based on your previous viewing — would then kick the viewer over to a new show.”

Branding is hard, he said, It takes “vision, time, discipline, effort, and consistency. So, essentially, data and algorithms have replaced the need for branding in streaming.”

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(Nina Metz is a Chicago Tribune critic who covers TV and film.)

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