MSNBC.com No Longer, Microsoft and NBC Divorce … Dissolve MSNBC.com Joint Venture after 16 Years

D-I-V-O-R-C-E, Say it isn’t so, BSNBC, I mean MSNBC.com is no longer … The heck with Tom-Cat’s divorce, this one is a bit more important and has greater ramifications, especially in the on-line news industry.

After 16 years of Internet marriage, Microsoft and NBC have finally divorced, the result is the dissolving of MSNBC.com which will become the artist formally known as BSNBC. Actually, the new on-line media outlet will become NBCNews.com and will moved its operations from the Microsoft campus in Redmond, WA to NBC News’ longtime home in New York. Microsoft will receive about $300,000,000 for its remaining shares.

Microsoft is pulling out of the joint venture that owned MSNBC.com, freeing the world’s largest software maker to build its own online news service.

The breakup announced late Sunday dissolves the final shreds of a 16-year marriage between Microsoft Corp. and NBC News, which is now owned by Comcast Corp. The relationship began to unwind in 2005 when Microsoft sold its stake in MSNBC’s cable TV channel to NBC.

NBC is buying Microsoft’s 50 percent interest in the MSNBC website for an undisclosed amount. MSNBC.com will be rebranded as NBCNews.com, and readers who logged into MSNBC.com late Sunday were automatically redirected to NBCNews.com.

Tammy Wynette – DIVORCE

Microsoft will no longer be obligated to contractual obligations with NBC and will now be able to pursue building its own online news service. As reported at the WAPO, Microsoft had grown extremely frustrated as they were required to exclusive MSNBC, liberal, moonbat content.

The inherent constraints of being locked into a joint venture sometimes handcuffed Microsoft and NBC.

Microsoft, in particular, had grown frustrated by contract terms requiring it to exclusively feature MSNBC.com content on its own websites. That exasperation was exacerbated by the MSNBC cable channel’s strategy to counter Fox News Channel’s appeal to conservative viewers by tailoring its programming for an audience with a liberal viewpoint.

The strategy fed a perception that material from MSNBC’s website was politically slanted, too.