Report - MSNBC.com to Change its Name

A report in the New York Times, citing internal memo's, suggest that NBC Universal and Microsoft are in advanced talks to change the name of the popular news website, msnbc.com.

It is reported that msnbc.com will become a site dedicated to the news network, allowing it to further promote its shows and on air activities, whilst news reporting will be moved to another website address, with nbcnews.com being tipped as a likely option.

Brian Stelter of the New York Times writes;

The two parents have determined that the brand of MSNBC.com, a strictly objective news Web site, is widely confused with MSNBC, the cable channel that has taken a strongly liberal bent in recent years, according to internal memorandums obtained by The New York Times this week.

Charlie Tillinghast, MSNBC.com’s president, wrote in a memo last March, “Both strategies are fine, but naming them the same thing is brand insanity.” The channel and Web site are already separate companies.

Alluding to the challenge that the two companies face in conceiving a brand-new news identity, MSNBC.com this week pushed back a board meeting on the topic by three weeks. “Consensus in this case is a tall order,” Mr. Tillinghast wrote in a message to employees Tuesday.

MSNBC.com’s network of Web sites are visited by almost 50 million Internet users each month, according to ComScore, making it bigger than all but two competitors, Yahoo and CNN.com.

Under the current plan, the MSNBC.com Web address would become a site exclusively for the cable channel, fulfilling the channel’s desire to have an independent site to promote its programs. The existing news site, called the “Blue site” internally, would move to a new and as-yet-undetermined Web address.

One of the new names under consideration is NBCNews.com, according to the memos and interviews. The companies are testing entirely new names, as well.

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