Comcast, the parent company of NBC, has bought out Microsoft's 50% stake in MSNBC.com for a reported $300 million to assume full control of the news Web site.
The deal ends 16 years of a 50-50 joint venture between Microsoft and NBCUniversal, which is now majority-owned by Comcast, NBC said.
"Today we're taking on a new name - NBCNews.com. While our name is changing, our commitment is not," Jennifer Sizemore, editor-in-chief of NBCNews.com, said in a letter posted on the company's Web site.
"The ties are deep, and untangling them will take at least two years," the network said.
The New York Times reported on Sunday the transaction was valued at $300 million, a part of which comes from the joint venture's past profits, citing people with knowledge of the deal.
NBC and Microsoft joined forces in 1996 to create a cable news channel and online news operation that melded broadcasting with then-emerging Internet technology.
At that time, Microsoft invested $220 million for its 50% stake in NBC.
In 2005, the companies terminated their partnership operating the MSNBC cable channel and NBC was acquired by Comcast four years later.
MSN said in a blog it will be delivering a new news service later this year that will be focused on its online consumers "harnessing real-time signals produced by social networks using the power of search to deliver breaking updates".
Analysts welcomed the move, saying it simplified Comcast's structure. Earlier this month, Comcast said NBC Universal would sell its 16% stake in History Channel owner A&E Television Networks for $3 billion. Two months earlier, Comcast said it would exercise an option to sell a "substantial portion" of its holding to its joint-venture partners Disney-ABC Television and Hearst.
"NBC (51%-owned by CMCSA) already bought in MSFT's stake in the cable channel MSNBC in 2005, and now NBC can more effectively cross-sell advertising of the unified brand on TV and online," said David Joyce, an analyst at Miller Tabak.
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