MSNBC is now able to vote. The NBCU cable channel turns 18 years old today.
MSNBC went on the air July 15, 1996, as a partnership between NBC News and Microsoft. The two companies built a $200 million newsroom in Secaucus, New Jersey for the online and on air operation. On cable, the network took over the 18-month-old America’s Talking, which had been the brainchild of Roger Ailes. Ailes would leave NBC and join News Corp. Three months after MSNBC went on the air, Ailes would flip the switch on Fox News Channel.
MSNBC and Fox News began to chip away at the 24-hour news network monopoly held by CNN. By 2002, Fox News would overtake CNN as the most-watched network. MSNBC shuffled anchors and experimented with various programs throughout the early 2000s and only began to make its mark, as an outlet for progressives 2007: the left’s answer to Fox News. It too, would overtake CNN in the ratings.
In 2005 NBC bought full control of MSNBC TV from Microsoft. Two years later, in October 2007, the network moved across the Hudson River to 30 Rockefeller Plaza where NBC News unveiled a new world headquarters for the combined MSNBC/NBC News. In 2012, NBC acquired full control of msnbc.com.