A Communications Laboratory

Something new is about to bloom on TV sets and personal computers all over the place.

But whether or not you bother checking out MSNBC right away, its debut Monday will almost certainly lead to changes in how you watch television and use your PC.

The MSNBC moniker employs Microsoft’s initials as a prefix to NBC. But along with those five letters, a billion-dollar joint agreement binds the software giant and the broadcast-TV network.

“Visionaries have said, ‘Oh yes, someday the computer and the television screen will come together,”’ says Mark Harrington. “Well, ‘someday’ turns out to be the 15th of July.”

What should surely distinguish MSNBC from anything else on television is two other initials: R and D. That is, the whole enterprise seems to be a monumental research-and-development project, a corporate-funded communications laboratory with an eye not to short-term profit but to long-term product breakthroughs.

So what will you find on MSNBC on Cable next Monday? Only the beginning, say the people in charge.

From 6 a.m. through 4 p.m. weekdays (3 a.m. until 4 p.m. on weekends), a flow of news and information will be anchored by Jodi Applegate, John Gibson, Ed Gordon and John Seigenthaler.

At 4 p.m., “Time and Again,” with Jane Pauley as host, will draw from 220,000 hours of NBC News archives to revisit stories as they were covered when they broke.

At 5 p.m., “Internight” is an interview program with Tom Brokaw, Katie Couric, Bryant Gumbel, Bob Costas and Bill Moyers in the rotation as host.

At 6 p.m., “The News with Brian Williams” will bring a flexible approach to the nightly news format.

At 7 p.m., “The Site,” produced in San Francisco by MSNBC and Ziff-Davis, publisher of numerous computer magazines, will explore new media.

Weekend prime-time schedules will largely consist of repeats, although correspondent John Hockenberry will launch a Saturday night talk show in the fall.