Comcast Buys Out Microsoft In MSNBC.com Deal

Comcast, the parent company of NBC, has purchased MSNBC.com in its entirety. With Microsoft now out of the partnership, MSNBC.com will be renamed and users who go to the website will be redirected to a new website. We reported in May that NBC was in talks to buy out Microsoft and it appears the deal is now done.

Microsoft owned 50% of MSNBC.com and the deal reportedly cost Comcast about $300 million. The new website is called NBCnews.com and the old MSNBC.com addresses redirecting to NBCnews.com. NBC and Microsoft launched the website in 1996 to create a TV news channel and online news operation.

There are also reports that MSNBC TV will get a new online website in 2013 to extend the MSNBC TV on-air brand to the Internet. That would mean that at least for now MSNBC as a television channel will remain.

"MSNBC TV will launch a new digital home in 2013, as an extension of the MSNBC TV on-air brand," the editor-in-chief of MSNBC.com wrote in a letter posted on MSNBC website.

[via Reuters]