Microsoft ends NBC partnership to build own news website

Microsoft has brought its 16 year partnership with NBC to an end and is looking to launch its own online news service.

MSNBC.com, which was founded in 1996 as a joint undertaking between Microsoft and NBC, will be re-launched in 2013 under the same name as a standalone NBC website.

Microsoft has sold its share in MSNBC.com for $300 million and is reportedly planning to set up and launch a news website staffed by 100 people with full Microsoft branding.

The split between the two long-term partners, which was described as “amicable” by Vivian Schiller, NBC News’ chief digital officer, prompted the immediate renaming of the site to NBCNews.com.

NBCNews.com, which has around 50 million annual visitors, will become part of NBC News Digital under Schiller’s leadership.

Despite being a pioneering concept when it was founded, in recent years MSNBC.com has fallen behind more modern contemporaries including Google, and rumours emerged of a schism between Microsoft and NBC over the type of news coverage offered by the site.

Speaking to the Associated Press, general manager of MSN.com Bob Visse said: “Being limited to MSNBC.com content was problematic to us because we couldn’t have the multiple news sources and the multiple perspectives that our users were telling us that they wanted.”

MSN has promised a service that will be “harnessing real-time signals produced by social networks using the power of search to deliver breaking updates”, to be launched later this year.