MSNBC is rebranding to MS NOW, but Microsoft’s influence lingers. A look at the history of Microsoft’s role, and how the “MS” lives on.

As the cable news channel MSNBC splits up with NBC News, it is also dropping the NBC from its name. Later this year, the channel will become MS NOW, which stands for My Source for News, Opinion, and the World.

Television’s MSNBC news network is changing its name to My Source News Opinion World, or MS NOW for short, as part of its corporate divorce from NBC. The network, which appeals to liberal audiences with a stable of personalities including Rachel Maddow,

The rebranding is expected by the end of the year as part of MSNBC’s corporate spinoff from Comcast’s NBCUniversal TV empire. The spinoff required the new company to stop using the NBC brand and its signature Peacock, which are both staying with Comcast.

The brand MSNBC is going the way of the dodo bird and will be replaced by the end of the year. Mediaite reported that the news network, launched in 1996 as a partnership between NBC and Microsoft, announced Monday that its new name is MS NOW,

MSNBC is set to rebrand later this year, a move that marks its separation from NBC and the removal of the familiar peacock logo.

The rebranding — which stands for My Source for News, Opinion, and the World — comes as Comcast spins off several of its cable networks into a new company called Versant. The change will drop both the NBC name and the peacock logo from MSNBC 's branding.

The change marks the end of a partnership that began in 1996, with the network joining CNBC and other channels under the new VERSANT umbrella.

MSNBC will divorce itself from the NBC branding and rename itself “MS NOW” when the channel is spun out by Comcast and relaunched under Versant’s ownership, the company announced on Monday.