MSNBC will change its name later this year to MS Now (My Source News Opinion World) and drop the peacock image from its branding. These are the first significant public-facing changes in Versant's upcoming separation from Comcast's NBCUniversal.

Cable news network MSNBC will change its name and drop the iconic peacock logo as parent Comcast presses ahead with the planned separation of many NBCUniversal cable networks later this year.

Comcast's looming spinoff of its cable assets is leading to a messy divorce between NBC News and MSNBC, which heavily relied on the Peacock network's news division.

The change, announced on Monday, comes as MSNBC has been building its own news division, as NBC News will no longer be a sister outlet following the spinoff. MSNBC and other Comcast cable networks will be part of a separate company, Versant, led by Mark Lazarus.

MSNBC changing its name to MS NOW is one of the worst branding disasters in media history. The logo looks like it belongs on a discount computer from 1998, not a serious news network. Absurd. pic.twitter.com/vjLAw6cOt5

The progressive news channel will also drop the NBC peacock from its brand imaging. The TV pecking order, as you once knew, is changing dramatically. For the latest proof of this, one need look no further than the doings at NBCUniversal,

Mark Lazarus, who's leading Versant, announced that MSNBC would trade its famous name for a new one: My Source News Opinion World, or MS Now.