# Versant The cable-networks company spun off from [[Comcast]]'s [[NBCUniversal]], completed after market close on **2 January 2026** and trading on Nasdaq as **VSNT** from 5 January. Announced 20 November 2024; the Versant name was revealed 6 May 2025. Chief executive **Mark Lazarus**, chairman David Novak, headquartered at 229 West 43rd Street in Manhattan with technical operations in Englewood Cliffs. ## The split — the load-bearing fact Which networks went where is the thing to get right, because the division was not arbitrary. **To Versant:** USA Network, **CNBC**, **MS NOW** (formerly [[MSNBC]]), Syfy, Oxygen, E!, Golf Channel, plus Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes and the GolfNow/GolfPass properties. **Retained by Comcast/NBCUniversal:** the NBC broadcast network, **NBC News**, NBC Sports, **Bravo**, Telemundo, **Peacock**, the Universal film and television studios, and the theme parks. ⭐ Bravo is the tell. It is a cable network, and it stayed — because its programming feeds Peacock. The split was not "cable versus broadcast." It was **assets that feed streaming versus assets that do not**, and everything that did not was put in a separate company. ## MSNBC became MS NOW The rename — "My Source News Opinion and the World" — was announced in August 2025 and **took effect 15 November 2025**, because the spun-off company could not keep the NBC brand on a news network it no longer shared with NBC News. CNBC kept its letters under a trademark licence. The operational separation was the substantive part and ran ahead of the rename: NBC News staff transfers took effect 6 October 2025, and the network **stopped using NBC News correspondents and crews on 20 October 2025**. It hired more than thirty-six journalists from CNN, Bloomberg, Politico, the *Washington Post*, ABC and PBS, recruited roughly fifty more, adopted its own editorial standards guidance, and moved its Washington bureau onto CNBC's floor. Most political anchors moved with the network, including Rachel Maddow; Steve Kornacki stayed at NBC — a visible division of previously shared talent. Its president has said the network "has not and will not change editorial direction." The structural changes are real regardless of intent: it now carries its own newsgathering costs, no longer shares NBC News infrastructure, and **its corporate parent owns no broadcast licences and no regulated cable ISP**. That cuts both ways. It removes the FCC and merger-review leverage that a hostile administration could apply to Comcast over MSNBC's coverage — and it removes the deep-pocketed parent that could absorb losses. ## The numbers Revenue was about **$6.69 billion in FY2025**, with net income of $930 million. Q1 2026 revenue was $1.687 billion, roughly flat, with net income of $286 million, down 22%; linear distribution revenue fell to $1.006 billion from $1.085 billion — the subscriber-decline signal that is the whole reason the company exists. Q2 2026 revenue was $1.64 billion, down 3.8%, with adjusted EBITDA down 8.9%; full-year guidance was nonetheless raised. It came out with roughly **$3.0 billion of debt raised at separation** and paid **$2.25 billion in cash to Comcast** on the way out. It pays a $0.375 quarterly dividend and has been buying back stock. **Market reaction has been poor.** Shares fell on the first day of regular trading and were around **$32.80 on 25 September 2026**, a market capitalisation near $4.6 billion, at a price/earnings ratio around 6 and a dividend yield near 4.6%. A company trading at six times earnings with a 4.6% yield is priced as a melting ice cube that pays you while it melts. It has been active as a buyer — Free TV Networks in January 2026, StockStory in April, Full Swing for $530 million in July, exclusive U.S. Bundesliga rights in July — and sold SportsEngine in May. Comcast framed it at announcement as "a potential partner and acquirer of complementary media businesses," which is the polite form of the strategy: a consolidator of declining assets. ## Why the structure matters politically The spinoff is the clearest instance of a pattern now general across the industry — Lionsgate separated its studio from Starz in 2025, and Warner Bros. Discovery's attempted linear/streaming separation was overtaken by the Paramount Skydance acquisition. **Linear cable news is being placed in vehicles that are separately financed, separately valued, and separately vulnerable.** The practical consequence arrived quickly. In late September 2026 the White House revoked press access for MS NOW, CNN and Politico; the three sued on 23 September and a federal judge ordered access restored the following day, with litigation continuing. The network fought that as a small company with its own balance sheet, not as a line item inside Comcast. ## See Also - [[Comcast]] · [[NBCUniversal]] · [[Brian Roberts]] — the parent and the logic of the split - [[MSNBC]] — the network, under both names - [[Media Company Timelines Hub]] · [[Comcast and NBCUniversal Timeline]]