Breaking news service BNO News, primarily known for its @BreakingNews Twitter account that has more than 1.4 million followers, has announced it will launch a paid-subscription newswire in early January.

Called BNO News Wire, the international service will target news media organizations as subscribers. BNO News also announced the first client of its newswire: Msnbc.com.

There's an interesting wrinkle to the deal, paidContent.org's Rafat Ali reports:

MSNBC.com [also] will take over the management of the @BreakingNews Twitter feed starting next month, while BNO and its 20-year old Dutch founder Michael van Poppel will now focus on developing its subscription-based wire service to sell to news companies.

Here's how BNO News described the arrangement in a press release:

MSNBC.com has agreed to manage @BreakingNews starting in early December and will continue to provide a 24/7 up-to-the-second feed of breaking news headlines via the Twitter account. This collaboration adds BNO News' wire service to msnbc.com's already robust news-gathering operation and means followers of @BreakingNews will continue to receive the timely news and updates they expect. BNO News' service will be a key input for the Twitter feed, which will incorporate breaking news from many media sources, original reporting on developing situations and links to more information across the Web.

With only 41,500 followers of its @msnbc_breaking Twitter account, being handed the keys to @BreakingNews is a potentially big benefit for msnbc.com. For BNO News, surrendering day-to-day responsibility for its @breakingnews Twitter account frees up van Poppel and others to focus on developing another revenue-generating service. The company already charges for its iPhone apps and monthly subscription.