Andrew Stiles of the Washington Free Beacon details the latest developments at the nation’s leading left-of-center cable television news outlet.

Comcast is finally cutting ties with MSNBC, the media conglomerate announced Wednesday. That’s bad news for the exorbitantly compensated and increasingly unhinged personalities who call the left-wing network home (for now). MSNBC and other declining television assets—but not the reality TV powerhouse Bravo—will be spun off into a new publicly traded company by the end of next year. That means MSNBC will soon be divorced from the ostensibly more serious and less overtly partisan NBC News, which routinely shares reportage, fact-checking, … and contributors with its sister network. Comcast brass on Wednesday told MSNBC staffers that  the network’s name and peacock logo might not survive the breakup. The outrageously inflated salaries of the network’s top anchors almost definitely won’t.

The move suggests Comcast executives can no longer justify to shareholders the enormous incomes of “star” hosts such as Rachel Maddow, Joe Scarborough, and Joy Reid. MSNBC and other Comcast-owned cable networks continue to make money, but those profits have declined substantially in recent years. That explains why executives and investors are eager to rid themselves of the “declining assets.” Comcast’s stock price rose in after-hours trading on Tuesday after news of the decision was leaked to the press. MSNBC’s hosts have had a good run, earning sizable fortunes preaching partisan hysteria to a dwindling audience of elderly viewers. In the week following this year’s election, the network drew just 65,000 primetime viewers in the coveted 25-54 age demographic, less than 10 percent of total viewers.

“This is sort of a very clear, direct statement by Comcast,” Rich Greenfield, cofounder of the research firm LightShed Partners, told CNBC, which is also being spun off into the new entity. “They are exiting the cable network business. This is them saying we don’t want to be in this business. This is no longer a growth business. It’s going to be around for a long time, but it’s just no longer a growth business.”