MSNBC (stylized as msnbc) is an American basic cable and satellite channel that provides news coverage andpolitical opinion on current events. It is owned by the NBCUniversal News Group, a unit of the NBCUniversal Television Groupdivision of NBCUniversal. Its name was derived from the most common abbreviations for Microsoft and the National BroadcastingCompany.
MSNBC and msnbc.com were founded in 1996 as partnerships of Microsoft and General Electric's NBC unit, which is nowNBCUniversal. The online partnership of msnbc.com ended on July 16, 2012 and the site was rebranded as NBCNews.com. MSNBC shares the NBC logo of a rainbow peacock with its sister channels NBC, CNBC, and NBCSN.
Beginning in the mid-2000s, MSNBC's opinion programming increasingly reflected its concept of political progressivism. In October 2010, it publicly acknowledged this with a marketing campaign it called "Lean Forward". Further, in September 2013, MSNBC launched its revamped official website under the tagline, "What Progressives Have Been Waiting For."
For the week of June 9, 2014, MSNBC placed 26th in primetime and 30th in total day, averaging 597,000 viewers and 336,000 viewers, respectively.
As of February 2015, approximately 94,531,000 households (81.2% of those with television) receive MSNBC
