NBC News
U.S. center-left
Background
NBC was founded in November 1926 by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), AT&T, and Westinghouse as a radio network, making it one of the oldest broadcast networks in the United States. It expanded into television news in the late 1940s and built a major journalism operation over the following decades. In 2004, NBC merged with Universal Studios under parent company General Electric to form NBCUniversal. Comcast acquired a controlling stake in 2011 and full ownership in 2013, placing the network under one of the country's largest cable and media corporations. In January 2026, Comcast spun off several cable channels into a new independent company called Versant, but NBC News remained part of Comcast's retained NBCUniversal portfolio. The network faced significant editorial controversies in the 2020s, including a 2017 decision not to air Ronan Farrow's reporting on Harvey Weinstein's sexual misconduct — reporting that later won a Pulitzer Prize after publication in The New Yorker — and a 2024 episode in which NBC hired and then quickly dismissed former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel as a paid analyst after prominent on-air talent publicly objected to her role in efforts to contest the 2020 election results. Independent bias analysts, including Media Bias/Fact Check and AllSides, consistently rate NBC News as left-center, citing story selection and language choices that moderately favor liberal viewpoints.
Sources
- NBC News – Bias and Credibility
- NBC News Media Bias – AllSides
- NBC News – Wikipedia
- NBCUniversal – Wikipedia
- NBCUniversal History and Facts – Britannica
- NBC News launching digital subscription service – Axios
- The fallout from NBC's controversial hire of Ronna McDaniel – Poynter
- Fact-checking Trump's Meet the Press interview – NBC News
Profile compiled 2026-06-25; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.