MS NOW Launching Direct-To-Consumer Product That Will Be ‘Home for Progressives on Digital’

(Photo by: Ralph Bavaro via MSNBC)

MS NOW will be launching a direct-to-consumer product that will act as a “home for progressives on digital” following a ratings bump after a recent rebrand.

Versant, MS NOW’s parent company, announced on Thursday its intention to take MS NOW’s digital presence significantly further in the summer of next year. The announcement was made at an investor day event held in New York City.

The company is hyping the product as something beyond a traditional streaming platform, calling it the next “evolution” after launching MS NOW Live, a live event series hosted by the network and featuring show hosts.

“Instead of a traditional SVOD, streaming product, the MS NOW DTC offering is centered around community, membership, and democracy. The MS NOW DTC product is intended to be a home for progressives on digital. These audiences are currently doing a lot of work finding and trying to stitch together a media diet across podcasts, YouTube, short-form video, news, etc. The objective is to be one place where they can consume that content and join a community,” a statement from MS NOW reads.

The product will offer “unprecedented access to their favorite hosts, thoughtful curation, opportunities to join vibrant discussions, and resources to engage in their communities and the fight for American democracy.”

The network currently features hosts such as Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Rachel Maddow, Nicolle Wallace, Ali Velshi, Jen Psaki, and others.

The service will still include a traditional 24/7 streaming access to MS NOW.

MS NOW rebranded from MSNBC last month and has since seen a more-than 20% increase in its primetime viewership, according to Nielsen data. After the rebrand, the network averaged 620,000 total-day viewers, a jump of 23% compared to the previous month. Primetime viewership also jumped 25% to 1.25 million viewers. Both daytime and primetime ratings also saw more than 20% increases in the 25-54 demo.

Notably, Fox News remains the dominant cable news network with 1.42 million average total-day viewers.