MSNBC

President Donald Trump’s razing of the White House’s East Wing to build a ballroom has put some news organizations following the story in an awkward position, with corporate owners among the contributors to the project — and their reporters covering it vigorously.

Comcast, which owns NBC News and MSNBC, has faced on-air criticism from some of the liberal cable channel’s personalities for its donation. Amazon, whose founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post, is another donor. The newspaper editorialized in favor of Trump’s project, pointing out the Bezos connection a day later after critics noted its omission.

It’s not the first time since Trump regained the presidency that interests of journalists at outlets that are a small part of a corporate titan’s portfolio have clashed with owners. Both the Walt Disney Co. and Paramount have settled lawsuits with Trump rather than defend ABC News and CBS News in court.

“This is Trump’s Washington,” said Chuck Todd, former NBC “Meet the Press” host. “None of this helps the reputations of the news organizations that these companies own, because it compromises everybody.”

Companies haven’t said how much they donated, or why

None of the individuals and corporations identified by the White House as donors has publicly said how much was given, although a $22 million Google donation was revealed in a court filing. Comcast would not say Friday why it gave, although some MSNBC commentators have sought to fill in the blanks.

MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle said the donations should be a concern to Americans, “because there ain’t no company out there writing a check just for good will.”

“Those public-facing companies should know that there’s a cost in terms of their reputations with the American people,” Rachel Maddow said on her show this week, specifically citing Comcast. “There may be a cost to their bottom line when they do things against American values, against the public interest because they want to please Trump or buy him off or profit somehow from his authoritarian overthrow of our democracy.”

NBC’s “Nightly News” led its Oct. 22 broadcast with a story on the East Wing demolition, which reporter Gabe Gutierrez said was paid for by private donors, “among them Comcast, NBC’s parent company.”

“Nightly News” spent a total of five minutes on the story that week, half the time of ABC’s “World News Tonight,” though NBC pre-empted its Tuesday newscast for NBA coverage, said Andrew Tyndall, head of ADT Research. There’s no evidence that Comcast tried to influence NBC’s coverage in any way; Todd said the corporation’s leaders have no history of doing that. A Comcast spokeswoman had no comment.

Todd spoke out against his bosses at NBC News in the past, but said he doubted he would have done so in this case, in part because Comcast hasn’t said why the contribution was made. “You could make the defense that it is contributing to the United States” by renovating the White House, he said.

More troubling, he said, is the perception that Comcast CEO Brian Roberts had to do it to curry favor with the Trump administration. Trump, in a Truth Social post in April, called Comcast and Roberts “a disgrace to the integrity of Broadcasting!!!” The president cited the company’s ownership of MSNBC and NBC News.

Roberts may need their help. Stories this week suggested Comcast might be interested in buying all or part of Warner Bros. Discovery, a deal that would require government approval.

White House cannot be ‘a museum to the past’

The Post’s editorial last weekend was eye-opening, even for a section that has taken a conservative turn following Bezos’ direction that it concentrate on defending personal liberties and the free market. The Oct. 25 editorial was unsigned, which indicates that it is the newspaper’s official position, and was titled “In Defense of the White House ballroom.”

The Post said the ballroom is a necessary addition and although Trump is pursuing it “in the most jarring manner possible,” it would not have gotten done in his term if he went through a traditional approval process.

“The White House cannot simply be a museum to the past,” the Post wrote. “Like America, it must evolve with the times to maintain its greatness. Strong leaders reject calcification. In that way, Trump’s undertaking is a shot across the bow at NIMBYs everywhere.”

In sharing a copy of the editorial on social media, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote that it was the “first dose of common sense I’ve seen from the legacy media on this story.”

The New York Times, by contrast, has not taken an editorial stand either for or against the project. It has run a handful of opinion columns: Ross Douthat called Trump’s move necessary considering potential red tape, while Maureen Dowd said it was an “unsanctioned, ahistoric, abominable destruction of the East Wing.”

In a social media post later Saturday, Columbia University journalism professor Bill Grueskin noted the absence of any mention of Bezos in the Post editorial” and said he wrote to a Post spokeswoman about it. In a “stealth edit” that Grueskin said didn’t include any explanation, a paragraph was added the next day about the private donors, including Amazon. “Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Post,” the newspaper said.

The Post had no comment on the issue, spokeswoman Olivia Petersen said on Sunday.

In a story this past week, NPR reported that the ballroom editorial was one of three that the Post had written in the previous two weeks on a matter in which Bezos had a financial or corporate interest without noting his personal stakes.

In a public appearance last December, Bezos acknowledged that he was a “terrible owner” for the Post from the point of view of appearances of conflict. “A pure newspaper owner who only owned a newspaper and did nothing else would probably be, from that point of view, a much better owner,” the Amazon founder said.

Grueskin, in an interview, said Bezos had every right as an owner to influence the Post’s editorial policy. But he said it was important for readers to know his involvement in the East Wing story. They may reject the editorial because of the conflict, he said, or conclude that “the editorial is so well-argued, I put a lot of credibility into what I just read.”

Bauder writes for the Associated Press.

NBCUniversal owner Comcast is indeed interested in some of Warner Bros. Discovery’s assets.

On a Thursday call with analysts to discuss third-quarter earnings, Comcast President Mike Cavanagh suggested the Philadelphia giant might bid for certain Warner assets, primarily the Warner Bros. film and television studios and its streaming service HBO Max.

Sources had previously said Comcast was angling to join the Warner Bros. Discovery auction after that company’s board formally opened the process last week. The Warner board has unanimously rejected three unsolicited bids from David Ellison’s Paramount, which has offered $58 billion for all of Warner Bros. Discovery.

Comcast isn’t looking to acquire the entire company or Warner’s large portfolio of cable channels that include CNN, TBS and Food Network. Instead, Cavanagh suggested that Comcast’s interest would be more narrow.

He noted that NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. have compatible businesses. Comcast wants to grow its studios business and its struggling streaming service, Peacock, which lost $217 million during the quarter.

“You should expect us to look at things that are trading in our space … It’s our job to try to figure out if there are ways to add value,” Cavanagh told analysts.

But he added a note of caution, saying the company didn’t feel that a merger was “necessary.”

“The bar is very high for us to pursue any [merger] transactions,” he said.

The Warner Bros. Discovery auction comes amid deep turmoil in the industry. Traditional entertainment companies, including Warner and NBCUniversal, have long relied heavily on cable programming fees to boost profit but consumers have been scaling back on pay-TV subscriptions amid the move to streaming.

To address that challenge, Comcast is spinning off its cable channels, including CNBC, MSNBC, USA and Golf Channel, into a separately traded company called Versant. That process is expected to be complete this year.

As part of the transition, the liberal-leaning MSNBC is changing its name to MS Now and dropping the peacock from its network logo, reflecting its pending exit from NBC, which will remain part of Comcast.

Cavanagh suggested that Comcast would not double down in a declining cable channel business that it was already exiting.

But Warner has other compelling businesses, including HBO and its Warner Bros. film and television studio. The Warner Bros. studio has released a string of movie blockbusters this year, including “Superman” and “A Minecraft Movie.”

Warner and NBCUniversal are investing in their respective streaming services but both lag Netflix, YouTube and Walt Disney Co. in terms of subscribers and engagement. Peacock has 41 million subscribers; the service has lost billions of dollars since Comcast launched it five years ago.

To shore up Peacock and the NBC broadcast network, Comcast has doubled down on sports, including striking a $27-billion, 10-year deal for NBA basketball, a contract that kicked in this month with the new season. (Nielsen ratings for the inaugural NBA game on NBC last week were strong — nearly 5 million viewers).

Most analysts believe that Ellison’s Paramount is in the best position to win Warner Bros. Discovery. They point to the Ellison family’s determination, wealth and political connections. Tech titan Larry Ellison, who is backing his son’s bid, is the second-richest man in the world behind Elon Musk, and President Trump views the elder Ellison as a good friend.

In contrast, Trump has displayed a dim view of Comcast Chairman and Chief Executive Brian Roberts, in large part, because of Comcast’s ownership of MSNBC, which Trump has accused of being an arm of the Democratic National Committee.

The tension has led observers to conclude that Comcast would face a stormy regulatory review process with Trump overseeing the Department of Justice, which would likely perform an anti-trust review of any major transaction for Warner Bros. Discovery.

Concerns about Comcast’s ability to get deals through the Trump administration may be overblown, Cavanagh said.

“I think more things are viable than maybe some of the public commentary [suggests],” Cavanagh said.

MSNBC has set a date for its new name.

Starting Nov. 15, the progressive-leaning cable news channel will be called MS NOW — an acronym for My Source, News, Opinion and World. The famous NBC peacock will no longer be part of the channel’s logo.

Viewers started seeing spots promoting the new moniker on Monday, with the tagline “Same mission, New name.” A larger marketing push will happen in the coming weeks according to a memo from MSNBC President Rebecca Kutler that was obtained by The Times.

The rebranding coincides with parent company Comcast’s spinoff of its NBCUniversal cable channels into Versant, a new company. CNBC, USA Network, Golf Channel, Oxygen, SyFy and E! are also part of the entity.

Comcast is unloading the channels because it believes the mature outlets face a bleak future due to pay TV cord-cutting and are an albatross weighing down its stock price. Comcast Chief Executive Brian Roberts will own 33% of the shares in Versant, which will trade as a public company under the symbol VSNT on the NASDAQ.

MSNBC will soon be called MS NOW.

(AP)

While the spinoff has been in the works for months, MSNBC viewers have heard little about it on the air until now. The network held a fan festival at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York earlier this month and all of the signage used the MSNBC logo. The name change was referred to several times by the personalities who appeared on stage.

The change required MSNBC to unwind its news operation from NBC News, which supplied correspondents to the channel. A number of NBC News correspondents, including Jacob Soboroff and Ken Dilanian, chose to work for Versant.

The current line-up of MSNBC opinion hosts — including Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Nicolle Wallace, Ari Melber, Rachel Maddow, Jen Psaki and Lawrence O’Donnell — will all make the transition to MS NOW.

Although MSNBC employees were initially told the network’s name would be retained, NBCUniversal decided it did not want its brand attached to a network it did not control.

NBC News correspondent Jacob Soboroff reporting on the wildfire that destroyed his boyhood home.

(NBC News)

Versant Chief Executive Mark Lazarus encouraged his staff to embrace the change in spite of the challenges of marketing a new brand in a highly fragmented media landscape.

“This gives us the opportunity to chart our own path forward, create distinct brand identities, and establish an independent news organization following the spin,” Lazarus wrote in an August memo.

MSNBC has its own Washington bureau, which has already broken a number of stories in recent weeks, including the indictments of former FBI Director James Comey and former national security advisor John Bolton.

MSNBC also has a multiyear agreement with U.K.-based Sky News to provide international coverage.

“Fox & Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade apologized Sunday for remarks he made last week that suggested using involuntary lethal injections to get mentally ill homeless people off the streets.

Kilmeade’s comments came during a discussion last Wednesday on “Fox & Friends” about the Aug. 22 stabbing death of a 23-year Ukranian refugee, Iryna Zarutska, on a light rail train in Charlotte, N.C.

Zarutska’s suspected killer, DeCarlos Brown Jr., is a homeless man with a long criminal record and is a paranoid schizophrenic, according to his family.

The attack on Zarutska was captured on security cameras and circulated widely online. The incident has sparked a national debate on public safety policy and criminal sentencing.

The topic led “Fox & Friends” co-host Laurence Jones to say that billions of dollars have been spent on programs to care for the homeless and mentally ill but many of those afflicted resist help.

“A lot of them don’t want to take the programs,” Jones said. “A lot of them don’t want to get the help that is necessary. You can’t give them the choice. Either you take the resources that we’re going to give you, or you decide that you’ve got to be locked up in jail.”

Kilmeade added: “Or involuntary lethal injection or something — just kill ‘em.”

A clip of Kilmeade’s remarks started to circulate widely on X on Saturday.

“I apologize for that extremely callous remark,” Kilmeade said during Sunday’s edition of the morning program. “I am obviously aware that not all mentally ill, homeless people act as the perpetrator did in North Carolina and that so many homeless people deserve our empathy and compassion.”

Many online commentators pointed out that Kilmeade’s comments evoked the extermination of mentally ill and disabled people that was authorized by Adolf Hitler in 1939. The German chancellor’s euthanasia program killed more than 250,000 people ahead of the Holocaust.

For now, Kilmeade has avoided the fate of political analyst Matthew Dowd, who lost his contributor role at MSNBC after commenting on the Wednesday shooting death of right wing political activist Charlie Kirk.

Dowd told MSNBC anchor Katy Tur that “hateful thoughts lead to hateful words which then lead to hateful actions.”

Dowd, once a political strategist for President George W. Bush, described Kirk as a divisive figure “who is constantly sort of pushing this sort of hate speech or sort of aimed at certain groups.”

The angry reaction on social media was immediate after Dowd’s comments suggested that Kirk’s history of incendiary remarks led to the shooting.

Rebecca Kutler, president of MSNBC, issued an apology and cut ties with Dowd.

Dowd also apologized in a post on BlueSky. “I in no way intended intended to blame Kirk for this horrendous attack,” he said.

The top executives at MSNBC parent Comcast sent a company-wide memo Friday citing Dowd’s firing and told employees “we need to do better.”

Political analyst Matthew Dowd lost his contributor role at MSNBC because of comments he made about Charlie Kirk after the young right-wing activist was murdered Wednesday.

Shortly after Kirk was shot to death while speaking on stage at Utah Valley State University, Dowd told MSNBC anchor Katy Tur that “hateful thoughts lead to hateful words which then lead to hateful actions.”

The angry reaction on social media was immediate after Dowd’s comments suggested that Kirk’s history of incendiary remarks led to the shooting.

MSNBC President Rebecca Kutler issued an apology Wednesday night.

“During our breaking news coverage of the shooting of Charlie Kirk, Matthew Dowd made comments that were inappropriate, insensitive, and unacceptable,” Kutler said in a statement. “There is no place for violence in America, political or otherwise.”

The network then severed ties with Dowd, according to a person briefed on the decision who was not authorized to comment.

“My thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of Charlie Kirk,” Dowd later wrote on his Bluesky account. “I was asked a question on the environment we are in. I apologize for my tone and words. Let me be clear, I in no way intended for my comments to blame Kirk for this horrendous attack.”

Dowd is a political consultant who served as the chief strategist for George W. Bush’s successful 2004 presidential reelection campaign. Dowd broke away from the Republican party due to his unhappiness with Bush’s handling of the Iraq war.

Dowd previously served as a political analyst for ABC News.

The US television network has been building its own news division separate from NBC News, and will also remove NBC’s peacock symbol from its new logo.

The MSNBC news network has said it will change its name to become My Source News Opinion World, or MS NOW for short, as part of its corporate divorce from NBC.

The TV network, which appeals to liberal audiences with a stable of personalities including Rachel Maddow, Ari Melber and Nicolle Wallace, made the announcement on Monday. It has been building its own separate news division from NBC News and will also remove NBC’s peacock symbol from its logo as part of the change, which will take effect later this year.

The name change was ordered by NBC Universal, which last November spun off cable networks USA, CNBC, MSNBC, E! Entertainment, Oxygen and the Golf Channel into its own company, called Versant. None of the other networks are changing their names.

MSNBC got its name upon its formation in 1996, as a partnership between Microsoft and NBC. Even back then, it was a puzzling moniker to many. But it stuck, even after the NBC partnership with Microsoft that produced it ended.

Versant CEO Mark Lazarus said in the initial days of the spinoff that the name MSNBC would stay, making Monday’s announcement an unexpected about-face.

Name changes always carry an inherent risk, and MSNBC President Rebecca Kutler said that for employees, it is hard to imagine the network under a different name. “This was not a decision that was made quickly or without significant debate,” she said in a memo to staff.

“During this time of transition, NBC Universal decided that our brand requires a new, separate identity,” she said. “This decision now allows us to set our own course and assert our independence as we continue to build our own modern newsgathering organization.”

Kutler said the network’s editorial direction will remain the same. “While our name will be changing, who we are and what we do will not,” she said.

Still, it’s noteworthy that the business channel CNBC is leaving “NBC” in its name. MSNBC argues that CNBC has always maintained a greater separation and, with its business focus, is less likely to cover many of the same topics.

The affiliation between a news division that stresses objectivity and one that doesn’t hide its liberal bent has long caused tension. US President Donald Trump refers to the cable network as “MSDNC,” for Democratic National Committee.

Maddow, in a recent episode of Pivot, noted that MSNBC will no longer have to compete with NBC News programmes for reporting product from out in the field — meaning it will no longer get the “leftovers”.

“In this case, we can apply our own instincts, our own queries, our own priorities, to getting stuff that we need from reporters and correspondents,” Maddow said. “And so it’s gonna be better.”

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough revealed the network’s new logo on his show Monday morning. “It looks very sporty,” he said.

MSNBC is being renamed after parent company Comcast spins the cable news channel off into a separate corporate entity later this year.

MSNBC will be known as MS NOW once it becomes part of Versant, a new company, and is no longer associated with NBC News, staffers were told Monday.

“Morning Joe” co-host Joe Scarborough informed viewers of the pending change on his program.

In a memo obtained by the Times, Versant Chief Executive Mark Lazarus indicated it was Comcast’s decision to remove NBC and its famous peacock logo from the MSNBC name.

“The peacock is synonymous with NBCUniversal, and it is a symbol they have decided to keep within the NBCU family,” Lazarus wrote. “This gives us the opportunity to chart our own path forward, create distinct brand identities, and establish an independent news organization following the spin.”

One person familiar with the name change discussions said the re-branding will be backed by a significant marketing campaign.

The MS NOW acronym will convey that the channel has a point of view, as the acronym stands for “my source,” news, opinion and world.

MSNBC will no longer share the resources of NBC News. The network is building its own news organization from scratch, with some NBC News journalists such as Jacob Soboroff choosing to join the cable operation.

MSNBC will also be leaving NBC’s Rockefeller Plaza headquarters for another Manhattan location.

Key MSNBC personalities such as Scarborough, Rachel Maddow, Ari Melber and Lawrence O’Donnell will remain a part of the channel after the spinoff.

Versant is the new stand-alone home for nearly all of the current parent company Comcast’s cable networks, which includes USA Network, the Golf Channel, CNBC and MSNBC. Comcast is spinning off the cable networks because it believes the mature outlets face a bleak future due to pay TV cord-cutting and are an albatross weighing down its stock price.

MSNBC, the second most watched cable news channel behind leader Fox News, has seen its reach into pay TV homes decline by 33% over the last 10 years.

MSNBC was founded in 1996 as a joint venture between NBC News and Microsoft. A name change was considered when Microsoft divested its stake in 2005, but NBC stuck with the moniker that had become entrenched in the media culture.

NBC News correspondent Jacob Soboroff will join MSNBC full time once the progressive cable channel is spun off into a new company, which will be called Versant.

Later this year, MSNBC is heading to Versant, which will be the new stand-alone home for current parent company Comcast’s cable networks.

As a result, MSNBC will no longer have the resources of NBC News and is putting together its own editorial operation. The stylized NBC peacock will also disappear from the MSNBC logo.

NBC News correspondents who moved seamlessly between NBC’s broadcast programs and MSNBC will no longer appear on both platforms once the spin-off is complete. (The one exception is expected to be Willie Geist, who has anchor roles on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” and NBC’s “Sunday Today.”)

Soboroff, a Los Angeles native who earlier this year reported on how his childhood home was lost in the Palisades fire, is the highest profile talent so far to leave NBC News in the split. He will remain based on the West Coast.

Jacob Soboroff is joining MSNBC after the network spun off from Comcast.

(Patrick Randak)

Soboroff, 42, was hired as an MSNBC correspondent in 2015. He was later named an NBC News correspondent and in recent years has frequently appeared as a fill-in co-host on the network’s morning franchise “Today.”

NBC News employees who worked both on the broadcast and cable sides have been asked to choose which entity they will join. Most NBC News staffers are choosing to stick with the network. Steve Kornacki, the number-crunching star of MSNBC’s election nights, chose the broadcast network over cable as he also works for NBC Sports.

But a number of NBC News correspondents, producers and executives are choosing to go to the cable side. The migration to MSNBC is surprising, considering the business environment.

Comcast is spinning off the cable networks because it believes the mature outlets face a bleak future due to pay TV cord-cutting and are an albatross weighing down its stock price. MSNBC, the second most watched cable news channel behind leader Fox News, is seen its reach into pay TV homes decline by 33% over the last 10 years.

That has not kept some significant names from giving the start-up a shot. Earlier this week, Versant announced that “NBC Nightly News” executive producer Meghan Rafferty is joining the company as vice president of news standards.

NBC News correspondents moving to the cable side include Ken Dilanian, who covers the Justice Department. Vaughn Hillyard is moving over to become senior White House correspondent, and David Noriega will be a national correspondent based in Los Angeles.

The new company has also attracted talent and executives from CNN, Politico and the New York Times.

TV news agents say privately that many NBC News staffers are expecting layoffs in the division over the next year as ratings and advertising revenue for broadcast TV decline. (The division has not announced any such plans).

While the channels going to Versant, which include CNBC, Golf Channel and USA Network, face similar challenges, the spinoff group is aggressively hiring and promises substantial investment in the channels that still turn a profit.

Correspondents are also attracted to the platform that a 24-hour cable network provides.

Soboroff, the son of Los Angeles civic leader Steve Soboroff, has focused on issues that appeal to the MSNBC audience.

He aggressively covered the family separation crisis at the southern border in 2018, which earned a Cronkite Award. He wrote a book on the topic and executive produced an Emmy-nominated documentary in 2024.

Most recently in June 2025, Soboroff led MSNBC’s coverage of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Los Angeles and the resulting protests. His upcoming book, “Firestorm: The Great Los Angeles Fires and America’s New Age of Disaster,” will be released in January.

The victims may be dead, but NBC’s “Dateline” is going live.

NBC News announced Tuesday that the cast of its popular long-running true crime newsmagazine will gather onstage Sept. 28 at the Pinnacle, a new music venue in Nashville.

Ticket-holding fans will see correspondents Josh Mankiewicz, Blayne Alexander, Keith Morrison, Dennis Murphy, Andrea Canning and anchor Lester Holt in panel discussions and Q&A sessions. There will also be criminal justice experts on hand for onstage demonstrations.

The Nashville session — which will also commemorate the 3,000th episode of the program first launched in 1992 — will be a test run, according to Liz Cole, senior executive producer for “Dateline.” A strong turnout could lead to more dates and become additional source of revenue for the program. (NBC News has not revealed prices for tickets, which go on sale Aug. 5.)

“We realized that the anniversary was coming up, and it’s such a big number we wanted to do something special to mark the occasion,” Cole said in an interview. “This seemed like a great way to experiment with the format and go out and meet with our ‘Dateline’ community in real life.”

The television news audiences are shrinking as viewers move from traditional appointment viewing to on-demand streaming. But on-air personalities, whether they are covering politics or true crime, have devoted fans willing to pay to see them up close.

The revenue news shows can generate from live events is probably limited as journalists and anchors need the time to report stories or prepare a nightly program, making it challenging to book lengthy tours. (The “Dateline” correspondents are frequently on the road for their stories.)

“It’s quite an accomplishment getting everyone in one place at one time,” Mankiewicz said in a recent interview. “That usually only happens here when we’re taking the team picture or we’re kicking off the new season.”

Networks with well-known franchises are looking for ways to expand their reach beyond the viewers tuning in each day. Every little bit helps. “Dateline” has been doing it with podcasts — one of which will carry an audio version of the Nashville show — which have attracted younger viewers who don’t watch on TV as often. Podcast versions of “Dateline” TV episodes regularly populate the Apple rankings.

But live events can help create a deeper connection with viewers, as other outlets have discovered.

MSNBC, which will soon be leaving the NBC News family to be a part of the Comcast spin-off company Versant, sold out a 4,000-seat venue in Brooklyn last year for its first “MSNBC Live” gathering.

“MSNBC Live 25” will return in October with a top ticket price of $1,086.05 for an evening session at the Manhattan Center’s Hammerstein Ballroom in New York. The price includes an orchestra seat and a VIP dinner event with hosts Rachel Maddow, Jen Psaki and Stephanie Ruhle in conversation with special guests.

Conservative-leaning Fox News has tapped into its loyal audience annually with its Patriot Awards show that features Sean Hannity and other anchors honoring citizens who “dedicate themselves to their communities with inspirational acts of courage and patriotism.”

A Fox News representative said the event, which is streamed on the network’s Fox Nation site, has sold out every year since its inception in 2019. In the fall last year, the program honored President Trump at the 2,242-seat Tilles Center in Long Island, N.Y., where the top ticket price was $669.

In March, NewsNation anchor Chris Cuomo joined ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith and former Fox News star Bill O’Reilly for an event billed as “Three Americans Live.” The trio regularly debate on Cuomo’s prime-time program for the Nexstar-owned news channel. No further dates have been booked since their one appearance in Westbury, N.Y.

Cole has seen evidence that the “Dateline” crew can draw a crowd on their own. The correspondents are a top attraction when they appear at CrimeCon, an annual gathering of true crime fanatics.

Many of those fans drive hours from around the country for the weekend event, which will be held in Denver later this year. The $1,800 Platinum VIP level tickets are sold out. (The dress code is “respectful casual” to discourage cosplaying.)

“I love the viewers because they always have questions and observations that I was not expecting, and I see that every year at CrimeCon,” Mankiewicz said. “I also experience it regularly at America’s airports, and I’m expecting that in Nashville.”

“E! News,” the nightly pop culture program that helped define cable network E! Entertainment Television, is going away.

The Comcast-owned network informed “E! News” staff Thursday the program will tape its final episode on Sept. 25. The channel’s news operation will continue to provide coverage online where it has a robust presence.

The staff was told the E! news audience prefers breaking entertainment coverage throughout the day on social media platforms instead of showing up at 11 p.m. Eastern for a live nightly show on traditional TV. About 20 jobs will be eliminated with the cancellation.

The network will continue to provide live coverage of red carpet events such as the Oscars and Golden Globes. E! also carries the People’s Choice Awards.

The “E! News” move was revealed ahead of the channel’s move to Versant, the spinoff company that will include other current Comcast cable channels such as MSNBC, CNBC and Golf Channel.

Comcast is putting all of its cable networks — with the exception of Bravo — into Versant to prevent the mature businesses from dragging down the company’s stock price.

“E! News” was launched in 1991 and was long a highly profitable business for the network as there were few TV outlets for live coverage of entertainment and pop culture. Ryan Seacrest was co-host of the program from 2006 to 2015. The program was canceled in 2020 but returned in 2022.

The show is currently co-hosted by Keltie Knight and Justin Sylvester. Some of the on-air talent from the program will have the chance to move to Versant.

MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace has delivered some sharp criticism of President Trump since she became a host on the progressive-leaning cable news network in 2017.

So it’s surprising that her new podcast shares its name with one of Trump’s regular boasts about his team: “The Best People.”

“I thought he had abandoned it,” Wallace, 53, told The Times. “But I actually think ‘the best people’ was one of his best messages in 2016.”

“He abandoned it officially when he picked Matt Gaetz,” she added, referring to Trump’s first choice for attorney general.

Each week on “The Best People,” starting Monday, Wallace will have lengthy conversations with actors, musicians, thought leaders and other figures outside of politics. The guest on the first episode is actor and fellow podcaster Jason Bateman, followed by Sarah Jessica Parker, music producer Jimmy Jam, folk singer Joan Baez and Milwaukee Bucks coach Doc Rivers in coming weeks.

The jump into podcasting comes as the network looks for more ways to reach the growing number of consumers who are no longer watching cable TV.

The network says its existing audio podcasts, which include series from hosts Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes and Jen Psaki, will top 10 million downloads in May.

“Our goal is to meet our audience where they are and to bring the talent of our hosts and anchors to them in those spaces,” said Madeleine Haeringer, MSNBC’s senior vice president of digital, audio and longform. “It’s not a one-size-fits-all formula — but instead, tailoring each project to both the host and the platform.”

Wallace said she was ready to expand her role at MSNBC before the corporate changes. Podcasting appealed to her because, as a working mom, she knows many women aren’t available to watch her daily program in the afternoon.

Her branching out into less overtly political territory is somewhat unexpected.

The former Bush White House communications director’s tenure on the ABC talk show “The View” was brief, partly due to her lack of pop culture expertise.

That’s not a concern this time around, she said. The guests she solicited for “The Best People” are coming to the table to discuss their own advocacy issues apart from the kind of instant political analysis presented on her MSNBC program “Deadline: White House.”

Wallace connected with Jimmy Jam when they discussed creating a “We Are the World” type of musical production to aid Ukraine. She knew Rivers through his social justice activism (as coach of the Los Angeles Clippers, he had to guide the players through the scandal over former owner Donald Sterling’s racist comments) and Parker for her devotion to literacy programs.

The podcast format allows them to open up in a way that doesn’t always happen on live TV.

“For some reason, people sitting in front of their computer screens on the Zoom are even more candid and forthcoming about how they feel,” Wallace said.

Wallace is wading into digital media at a time when MSNBC is in transition. The channel, along with other NBCUniversal cable outlets, is being spun off from current owner Comcast into a new company called Versant.

Comcast is getting out of the cable channel business, with the exception of its potent reality brand Bravo, out of concern about the steady decline of the pay TV audience. Over the last 10 years, cord-cutting has reduced the number of cable homes MSNBC reaches by 33%.

MSNBC also saw a mass exodus of viewers just after the presidential election, as its loyal left-leaning audience tuned out after Trump’s victory.

The ratings have gradually climbed back up, with MSNBC maintaining its second place position behind perennial cable leader Fox News but well ahead of third place CNN. In May, the network was up 24% from the lows it hit in November and December, but is still down 35% compared to the presidential campaign-elevated levels of a year ago, according to Nielsen.

But leadership at Versant has it made clear that MSNBC will continue to cater to a politically progressive audience.

Wallace believes the commitment to the network’s point of view has only deepened under new management. “It’s a culture that really rewards deep wonky coverage of politics,” she said. “[MSNBC President] Rebecca Kutler has come in and tripled down on all of that.”

The spinoff requires separating MSNBC from NBC News, where some journalists were uneasy with the intensity of partisan commentary on the cable network. Versant is hiring its own newsgathering team — as many as 100 journalists — including justice and intelligence correspondent Ken Dilanian, who is moving over from NBC.

“To work for someone who is hiring reporters at a time when we’re looking at an administration that seems a little meh about the Constitution is pretty forward leaning,” Wallace said.

She was inspired to try something new by the extracurricular activities of her husband, the New York Times’ Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Michael S. Schmidt, who co-created the Netflix thriller series “Zero Day” with former NBC News President Noah Oppenheim.

“Michael enjoyed it so much it gave me the idea to add something that is a little outside my comfort zone,” Wallace said.

Wallace met Schmidt, 41, at MSNBC, where he is a contributor. They married in 2022 and a year later had their first child via surrogate. Wallace also has a 13-year-old son, Liam, from her first marriage.

While Wallace and Schmidt have a business-like dynamic when they appear together on the program, family matters creep in off-camera.

“When we are both on set, my son is texting us about dinner,” Wallace said. “During the breaks, we’re never talking about the rule of law. We’re talking about logistics.”