MSNBC

MSNBC (stylized as msnbc) is a cable news channel based in the United States and available in the US, the UK, Middle East and Canada. Its name is a combination of "Microsoft" and "NBC".

msnbc.com, a separate company, is the news website for the NBC News family, featuring interactivity and multimedia plus original stories and video which augment the content from NBC News and partners.

Two partnerships with the names MSNBC and msnbc.com were founded in 1996 by Microsoft and General Electric's NBC unit, which is now NBC Universal. Although Microsoft and NBC shared operations of MSNBC cable at its founding, it was announced on December 23, 2005, that NBC Universal would purchase a majority stake in the television channel, which left Microsoft with 18%. The two companies remain partners in msnbc.com. MSNBC shares the NBC logo of a rainbow peacock with its sister channels NBC, CNBC and ShopNBC. MSNBC is available in over 78 million households in the United States; and between June 2008 and May 2009, msnbc.com had the most unique visitors among global news and current events websites.

Many observers of the channel say that MSNBC has become politically liberal compared with other channels, particularly in its prime-time lineup.

Development
MSNBC was established by NBC executive Tom Rogers. Rogers was instrumental in developing the strategic partnership with Microsoft, which invested $220 million for a 50% share of the cable channel. MSNBC and Microsoft would share the cost of a $200 million newsroom in Secaucus, New Jersey, for msnbc.com. NBC supplied the space with an 18-month-old America's Talking network.

Early history
MSNBC was launched on July 15, 1996. The first show, which was anchored by Jodi Applegate, broadcast a lineup of news, interviews, and opinions. During the day, rolling news coverage continued with The Contributors, a show that featured Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham, as well as interactive programming coordinated by Applegate, John Gibson, and John Seigenthaler. Stories were generally longer and more detailed than the stories running on CNN at the time. NBC also highlighted their broadcast connections by airing stories direct from the NBC network affiliates, along with breaking news coverage from the same sources.

By the start of 2001, MSNBC continued to trail both Fox News and CNN. With the success of Fox News Channel, MSNBC tried to emulate the Fox News Channel's emphasis on opinion hosts. The Project for Excellence in Journalism found in 2007 after a seven year survey of cable channels that "MSNBC is moving to make politics a brand, with a large dose of opinion and personality." In January 2001, Mike Barnicle got a show on MSNBC, but it was canceled in June 2001 due to high production costs. In June, in a sign of continuing trouble at MSNBC, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that he would not have started MSNBC if he knew then what he knows now. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, MSNBC served as an outlet for NBC News to provide up-to-the-minute coverage, in contrast to broadcast NBC's longer stories. CNBC and CNBC Europe, with little financial news to report, ran MSNBC for many hours of the day following the attacks. The year also boosted the profile of Ashleigh Banfield, who had escaped injury while covering the World Trade Center on September 11. Her Region In Conflict program capitalized on her newfound celebrity and showcased exclusive interviews from Afghanistan.

On December 23, 2005, it was announced that NBC Universal would acquire an additional 32% share of the television channel from Microsoft, solidifying its control over television operations and allowing NBC to further consolidate MSNBC's backroom operations with NBC News and its other cable properties. Msnbc.com would continue to be 50% owned by both NBC and Microsoft, and its operations would be largely unaffected. NBC would have the option to buy the remaining 18% share from Microsoft after two years.

In June 2006, Don Kaplan of the New York Post (owned by News Corporation, which also owns Fox News Channel) wrote a column titled "Do We Need MSNBC?" Addressing MSNBC'S low ratings, Kaplan quoted CNN co-founder Reese Schonfeld, who said that "[e]verybody compares MSNBC to Fox and CNN — when its real competition is Headline News". Schonfeld pointed out that the ratings for MSNBC and Headline News are roughly the same, about 300,000 viewers on average and that "by comparison, Fox and CNN regularly average three or four times as many viewers." In the column Kaplan remarked that "the running joke in TV news is Fox and CNN are news channels with websites, but MSNBC is a website with a cable channel". On June 7, 2006, Rick Kaplan resigned as president of MSNBC, after holding the post for two years. Following the announcement, it was announced on June 12, 2006, that Dan Abrams, a nine-year veteran of MSNBC and NBC News, had been named General Manager of the NBC News 24-hour cable news channel, effective immediately. NBC News Senior Vice President Phil Griffin would oversee MSNBC. Griffin would also continue to oversee NBC News’ Today, and Abrams would report to Griffin.

On June 29, 2006, Abrams announced a revamp to MSNBC's early-primetime and primetime schedule. On July 10, Tucker (formerly The Situation with Tucker Carlson) started airing at 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. ET (taking over Abrams' old timeslot), while Rita Cosby's Live & Direct was taken off the schedule. Cosby was instead given the role of primary anchor for MSNBC Investigates at 10 and 11 p.m. ET, a new program that took over Cosby and Carlson's timeslots. According to the press release, MSNBC Investigates promised to "...complement MSNBC's existing programming by building on [the channel's] library of award winning documentaries." The move to taped programming during 10 and 11 p.m. was likely a result of the success that MSNBC saw with their Friday "experiment" of replacing all primetime programming with taped specials. On September 24, 2007, Abrams announced that he would leave the position of General Manager to focus on his 9:00 p.m. ET talk show, "Live With Dan Abrams". Oversight of MSNBC is now provided by Phil Griffin, a senior vice president at NBC.

MSNBC and NBC News launched broadcasts from their new studios at NBC's "30 Rock" complex in New York City on October 22, 2007. After extensive renovations of the associated studios, NBC essentially merged its entire news operation into one building, and all MSNBC broadcasts, as well as the NBC Nightly News program, originate in the new studios. More than 12.5 hours of live television across the NBC News family originate from the New York studios daily. MSNBC is also expected to expand West Coast operations, as the channel recently announced new studios near the Universal Studios lot, which will assemble all NBC West Coast news operations in one building. MSNBC's Master Control did not make the move to 30 Rock. It remained in the old Secaucus headquarters until it completed its move to the NBC Universal Network Origination Center located inside the CNBC Global Headquarters building in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, on December 21, 2007. Shortly thereafter, Major League Baseball firmed up a long-term lease of the former MSNBC building to become the home studios of MLB Network, which launched from the facility on January 1, 2009.

Changes since 2008
From mid-2007 to mid-2008, MSNBC received a large increase in its ratings. Primetime viewings increased by 61% over that time. In May 2008, NBC News President Steve Capus said that "It used to be people didn't have to worry about MSNBC because it was an also-ran cable channel.... That's not the case anymore." Tim Russert's sudden death in June 2008 removed what The Wall Street Journal called the "rudder for the network" and has currently led to a period of transition.

During the 2008 Presidential election, MSNBC's coverage was anchored by Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, and David Gregory. The three were widely viewed as the face of the channel's political coverage. During the first three months of the presidential campaign, MSNBC's ratings grew by 158 percent. However, during the election coverage, anchors Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews were criticized by conservatives for expressing left-leaning viewpoints on the channel, and both of them were later removed from the position of anchor. Audience viewership during the 2008 Presidential election more than doubled from the 2004 Presidential election, and the channel topped CNN in ratings for the first time during the last three months of the campaign in the key 25-54 age demographic.

In September 2008, the channel hired political analyst and Rhodes Scholar, Rachel Maddow to host a new political opinion program called The Rachel Maddow Show. The move to create a new program for the channel was widely seen as a smart ratings move, where beforehand, MSNBC lagged behind in coveted primetime ratings. Now, the show regularly outperforms CNN's Larry King Live, and made the channel competitive in the program's time slot for the first time in over a decade.

In the first quarter of 2010, MSNBC beat CNN in primetime and overall ratings, marking the first time doing so since 2001. The channel also beat CNN in total adult viewers in March, marking the seventh out of the past eight months MSNBC achieved that accolade. In addition, the programs Morning Joe, The Ed Show, Hardball with Chris Matthews, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, and The Rachel Maddow Show all finished ahead of their time slot competitors on CNN.

Carriage issues
MSNBC was not available to Verizon FiOS and AT&T U-verse TV subscribers in portions of New York, northern New Jersey and Connecticut which overlap with Cablevision's cable television territory until 2010. The reason for the lack of availability was, in part, due to an exclusive carriage agreement that MSNBC entered into with Cablevision, which prohibited competing wired providers from carrying MSNBC. The terms of the agreement were not publicly known.

A suit from Verizon to the FCC was filed in order to force the termination of this deal. Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal wrote to new FCC chairman Julius Genachowski, agreeing with Verizon, saying that the deal may be illegal. After reaching a new contract, FiOS added the channel in New York City and in New Jersey on February 2, 2010.

High Definition
MSNBC HD is a 1080i high definition simulcast of MSNBC that launched on June 29, 2009. All studio shows and select long form programs air in HD.

Cablevision was the only provider to carry MSNBC HD at its launch date. Dish Network added the HD channel on July 8. Time Warner Cable launched the HD feed on July 22 in the New York area. The feed was made available in late July in Ithaca, NY on Time Warner. Bright House Networks added the HD feed in July. Verizon FiOS added MSNBC HD on February 11, 2010. DirecTV added the HD channel on May 19, 2010.

Comcast has also added MSNBC HD in several markets, though this seems to be on a market-to-market addition in which they add the channel one market at a time instead of adding the channel to all markets in one move, leaving some customers  still without access.

In Canada, Bell TV and Bell FibeTV are currently offering MSNBC HD.

International broadcasts
MSNBC is shown only in the United States, Canada, parts of Latin America, and parts of Northern Africa (see below).

MSNBC Canada
In 2001, a Canadian version with some local content, MSNBC Canada, was developed; however, it was soon discontinued in 2004, and the American version began airing in Canada. The channel was operated by Rogers Communications and co-owned by Rogers, Shaw and MSNBC, with each party owned a 33.33% voting interest in the service. The channel launched on September 7, 2001.

Programming included MSNBC programs as well as repeats of shows from CBC and Cable Public Affairs Channel, as its way to fulfil its Canadian content requirements. They also ran infomercials, which the American service never shows.

MSNBC Africa
In Southern Africa, MSNBC is distributed free-to-air on satellite on Free2View TV as MSNBC Africa, a joint venture between Great Media Limited and MSNBC. Free2View airs MSNBC's programming from 4 p.m. to midnight ET in a block that repeats twice (live for the first airing), with local Weather Channel forecasts. Botswana's national television broadcaster, BTV, also provides an un-edited broadcast of MSNBC (including advertisements) after their scheduled programming each evening. BTV is available within Botswana, as well as to Southern Africa viewers on DStv.

Europe and Asia
In Asia and Europe, MSNBC is not shown on a channel of its own. When MSNBC started in 1996 they announced plans to start broadcasting in Europe during 1997. This never happened; however, MSNBC is shown for a few hours a day on the 24 hour news network Orbit News in Europe and the Middle East. Orbit News is a network of three 24 hour satellite and cable channels offering exclusively American news programming from ABC, NBC, PBS, and MSNBC to U.S. expats and other viewers abroad, primarily geared towards an audience in the Arab countries. MSNBC is available on digital satellite and cable in Europe, Middle East and North Africa, however, cable operators in Europe are currently unable to carry the channels due to unsolved rights issues.

NBC Nightly News was shown on CNBC Europe as a part of its primetime lineup until April 2010, due to international distribution changes made by NBC Universal. During breaking news events, MSNBC is also shown occasionally on affiliate channel CNBC Europe.

NTV-MSNBC
In Turkey, NTV-MSNBC is the news channel of the Turkish broadcaster NTV Turkey. The channel is a joint partnership between the two, although very little Turkish content makes its way onto English MSNBC. English content on MSNBC is translated to Turkish.

Online


Msnbc.com, a separate company from MSNBC cable, is the online news outlet for the NBC News family, including network shows such as Today, NBC Nightly News, and Dateline NBC, as well as MSNBC TV. In addition to NBC News content and material produced by the site's own staff, msnbc.com also hosts articles and features from several partners, including The Washington Post and Newsweek magazine.

The web site is developed in Redmond, Washington, on the Microsoft campus and news content is produced out of newsrooms in Redmond, New York, and London. It is the news provider for MSN, the portal site and online service operated by Microsoft, but it is editorially and financially separate.

On April 2, 2007, msnbc.com launched a new logo and a new slogan, "A Fuller Spectrum of News."

According to Nielsen Online, msnbc.com has risen above Yahoo! News and CNN for the position of top news site from June 2008 through May 2009, measured by unique visitors in the U.S.

Radio
The channel launched on XM Satellite Radio channel 120 and Sirius Satellite Radio channel 90 on April 12, 2010. This is the second time MSNBC has been on satellite radio; the channel has been on XM before, but was subsequently dropped from the service on September 4, 2006.

Future shows
Starting in the September 27, 2010, Lawrence O'Donnell will host a 10 pm ET weeknight show called The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell on the channel.

Accusations of liberal bias
Commentators have described MSNBC as having a bias towards the political left and the Democratic Party. In November 2007, a New York Times article stated that MSNBC's prime-time lineup is tilting more to the left. Washington Post media analyst Howard Kurtz has stated that the channel's evening lineup "has clearly gravitated to the left in recent years and often seems to regard itself as the antithesis of Fox News." In reference to the channel's evening programming, senior vice president of NBC News Phil Griffin has said that "It happened naturally. There isn’t a dogma we’re putting through. There is a ‘Go for it.’”

In the February 2008 issue of Men's Journal magazine, a MSNBC interviewee quoted a senior executive who said that liberal commentator Keith Olbermann "runs MSNBC" and that "because of his success, he's in charge" of the channel. The New York Times has called Olbermann MSNBC's "most recognizable face". In September 2008, MSNBC stated that they were removing both Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews as live political event anchors, and replacing them with David Gregory, due to growing criticism that they were "too opinionated to be seen as neutral in the heat of the presidential campaign." Olbermann continued to broadcast Countdown both before and after the presidential and vice-presidential debates, and both Matthews and Olbermann joined Gregory on the channel's election night coverage. In September 2009, a Pew Research Poll showed that Democrats were much more likely than Republicans to rate the channel favorably and Republicans were much more likely than Democrats to see MSNBC unfavorably.

On November 13, 2009, in the days leading up to the release of 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin's book "Going Rogue", MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan used photoshopped pictures of Palin on the channel's Morning Meeting program. Ratigan apologized a few days later stating, "I want to apologize to Governor Palin and all of our viewers. On Friday, in a very misguided attempt to have some fun in advance of Sarah Palin’s upcoming book Going Rogue, our staff mistakenly used some clearly photoshopped images of Ms. Palin without any acknowledgment."

Accusations of pro-Obama bias
Some Democratic Party supporters, most notably Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, criticized MSNBC during and after the 2008 Democratic Primaries, as covering Barack Obama more favorably than Hillary Clinton. A study done by the Project for Excellence in Journalism showed that MSNBC had less negative coverage of Obama (14% of stories vs. 29% in the press overall) and more negative stories about Republican presidential candidate John McCain (73% of its coverage vs. 57% in the press overall). MSNBC's on-air slogan during the week of the 2008 presidential election, "The Power of Change", was criticized as being overtly similar to Obama's campaign slogan of "Change." Following the 2008 presidential election, conservative talk-show host, John Ziegler worked on a documentary called Media Malpractice.... How Obama Got Elected, which was very critical of the media, especially MSNBC's role, in the 2008 Presidential Election. While promoting the documentary, he got in an on-air fight with MSNBC news anchor Contessa Brewer, on how the media, especially MSNBC, had portrayed Sarah Palin.

Michael Savage dismissal
During the spring and early summer of 2003, MSNBC featured a weekend talk show hosted by conservative radio host Michael Savage. In July of that year, Savage snapped at a prank caller on his show, calling him a "pig" and a "sodomite," telling him that he "should get AIDS and die." Savage's show was canceled shortly afterward and Savage himself was fired from the channel (with some reports stating that the termination occurring immediately after that episode went off air).

Don Imus controversy
In early April 2007, Don Imus, whose radio show Imus in the Morning was simulcast on MSNBC, made comments about the Rutgers University women's basketball team, describing the players as "some nappy-headed hoes". The comments sparked outrage, as many individuals considered the comments to be both racist and sexist. After an initial two-week suspension of Imus' program, MSNBC canceled the simulcast as sponsors started withdrawing their advertisements from the show. Imus, as well as NBC News, apologized to the Rutgers Basketball team for the remarks. Don Imus now has a feature show on the Fox Business Network.

"Rise of the New Right" documentary
In June 2010, a documentary airing on MSNBC and hosted by Chris Matthews called Rise of the New Right drew significant criticism from conservatives and the Tea Party movement. The documentary features interviews with Dick Armey, the former House Majority Leader, Orly Taitz, a leading figure in the "birther" movement, and radio host Alex Jones. The documentary also showed the Michigan Militia’s survival training camp and hit the campaign trail with Kentucky Senatorial candidate Rand Paul.

Since the documentary has aired, FreedomWorks issued a letter calling for a boycott of Dawn and Proctor and Gamble, which advertises during Hardball with Chris Matthews, asking tea partyers to "call, fax, or email" the company until it drops its advertising. Its grassroots director Brendan Steinhauser said, "The Tea Party movement I know looks nothing like the one portrayed on MSNBC‘s Hardball. The movement is made up of good, hardworking, honest, smart people that love their country. It is a movement that reflects the best in America, and I will remind Dawn of this fact when I write my letter and make my phone calls."The National Tea Party federation also pushed for a boycott of the show's advertisers. Anna Puig of the Kitchen Table Patriots said in a statement, "The propaganda piece only serves a left-wing agenda, and I will do everything I can to convince Dawn to stop funding MSNBC’s lies." A blogger on Hot Air wrote, "It's a poor excuse of objective journalism. Calling it a documentary is a pathetic joke."