NBC News is launching “The Data Dive With Steve Kornacki,” a cross-platform franchise centered on Kornacki’s signature data-driven political analysis, the network announced in August 2026. The initiative reflects NBC News’ broader bet that one of its most recognizable on-air personalities can help drive sign-ups to the digital subscription service the network launched in December 2025.
The centerpiece of the franchise is a weekly, subscriber-exclusive newsletter publishing Tuesday mornings. According to Axios, the email will launch with a heavy focus on the 2026 midterms, offering readers detailed breakdowns of the numbers, trends, and data points shaping the biggest stories in the election cycle. “It’s where we go real deep,” Kornacki told Axios in an interview. “I’m trying to give folks who are reading it a real sense of — when they start watching those results on primary night — where to be looking, what to be looking for and what the trends have been that might explain how this thing is going to shake out.”
Beyond the newsletter, the “Data Dive” branding will encompass all of Kornacki’s published content on NBCNews.com and extend across NBC News television programming, including “TODAY,” “Nightly News,” “Meet the Press,” and NBC News NOW. This multi-platform approach positions Kornacki’s analysis as a unifying brand across the news division’s offerings.
Kornacki plans eventually to expand the franchise beyond politics into sports coverage. “It could be with the NFL, it could be with the Olympics, it could be with the NBA,” he told Axios, describing sports as “phase two” of the initiative. This expansion reflects his role under a 2025 contract that named him chief data analyst for both NBC News and NBC Sports, a position that moved him away from MSNBC (now known as MS NOW), where he had been a host and correspondent for a decade.
The Data Dive franchise builds on the success of the “Kornacki Cam,” an election-night livestream that has generated more than 25 million views across 14 election nights, according to NBC News. Kornacki told Axios the streams began as an experiment but revealed an audience eager to spend hours following narrow returns in real time. “It turned out there was a pretty significant audience out there that wanted to spend hours … watching the map slowly fill in, watching the returns come in county by county,” he said.
The franchise reflects a broader NBC News strategy to build media businesses around individual talent. The network has elevated its own journalists and also hired external experts—such as tech journalist Joanna Stern in 2026—to boost its subscription offerings. By centering the Data Dive on Kornacki’s analytical brand and proven audience appeal, NBC News aims to convert casual viewers into paying subscribers while deepening engagement with the data-driven storytelling that has become central to election coverage.
Sources
- Axios — Kornacki’s exclusive announcement of the Data Dive franchise, details on the newsletter format and midterms focus, expansion plans for sports, and the Kornacki Cam viewership figure of 25 million views across 14 election nights
- NBC News — Official confirmation of the Data Dive franchise, newsletter publication schedule (Tuesday mornings), and cross-platform visibility across TODAY, Nightly News, Meet the Press, and NBC News NOW
- Los Angeles Times — Details on Kornacki’s April 2025 contract transition from MSNBC to NBC News and NBC Sports
- Deadline — Confirmation of Kornacki’s new deal with NBC News and NBC Sports in April 2025
- Politico — Context on Kornacki’s exit from MSNBC as part of the MSNBC-NBC News split
