× MSNBC is an American news-based pay television cable channel based in New York City. It is owned by the NBCUniversal News Group division of NBCUniversal (a subsidiary of Comcast). It provides NBC News coverage as well as its own reporting and political commentary on current events. As of September 2018, approximately 87 million households in the United States (90.7 percent of pay television subscribers) were receiving MSNBC. In 2019, MSNBC ranked second among basic cable networks averaging 1.8 million viewers, behind rival Fox News, averaging 2.5 million viewers.