REN-TV

Background
In 1991 Irena Lesnevskaya and her son Dmitriy founded REN TV, an independent production company. The first show, Irony of Fate, or Merry Christmas!, was broadcasted on December 24, 1991. In 1996 Lesnevskaya bought a TV franchise and the company became a TV channel. In 2006 it was partially sold to German RTL Group, while other 70% are still owned by Russian industry holdings. Later that year the name was changed to Cyrillic and finally the "tv" was omitted in 2007. The channel was known as the last uncensored source of news, but this is no longer the case. All state channels in Russia are censored and controlled, meaning they are banned from showing news which could spoil any party's image; though this is not officially admitted.

1st Logo (December 24, 1991-1992)
Logo: In space, two sky blue arches with flashing pink, purple and lavender lines inside, and the Earth appear and spin counterclockwise. When they stop, the sky blue "tv" with flashing lines inside, appears and stands between arches in the upper right part of forming circle. The sky blue "REN" with same flashing lines as arches and "tv" inside, flies from top and zooms out to the logo. All the logo zooms out and the word "ПРЕДСТАВЛЯЕТ" flips upwards from bottom.

Technique: 2D computer animation.

Music/Sounds: An uplifting fanfare.

Availability: Extinct, but preserved in TV archives and can be seen on Russian nostalgic channels.

2nd Logo (1992-1998)
Logo: On the cerulean smoke background, the 3D rough cyan blue REN tv logo appears from the right and moves to the center. When it stops, the spark appears and makes the logo smooth, moving along the bottom arch and shining. "t v" shines, the spark disappears and reappears lower, moving parallel to bottom arch, wiping in "ПРЕДСТАВЛЯЕТ" and goes backwards. The logo flashes, making the starry background inside the logo and we zoom through it, transitioning to the starry background and fades out afterwards.

Technique: CGI.

Music/Sounds: A calm slow theme, consisting of pipe organs, xylophones, choir, and a synth hit.

Availability: Same as 1st logo.

3rd Logo (1998-December 27, 2005)
Logo: On the black background, we see blue, dark green, and orange circular ripples. Three seconds later, the logo forms as an outline, then gets filled with the blue color. It shines and disappears. Letters of the word "ПРЕДСТАВЛЯЕТ" appears shining from left to right. Then the whole word shines and disappears after some seconds.

Technique: CGI.

Music/Sounds: A slow theme with tribal drums and a flute.

Availability: Uncommon, extinct on TV, but can be found on Soldaty (1-4) and other old DVD releases. See no the first season of TV series Боец.

4th Logo (September 4, 2005-2006)
Logo: On the black background, the white glowing vertical line appears by expanding, and flips into the wide tilted oval with the narrower and more tilted oval and "TV" connected to the oval, cot out, while "REN" slides inside the oval cut out from the right, forming the 2005-2006 REN-TV logo. The words "телевизионный канал" appear by zooming out letter-by-letter to the near top-left hand corner when it's almost formed.

Variant: The logo appeared still on a few series.

Technique: CGI.

Music/Sounds: The shortened version of the last logo's theme.

Availability: Extinct.

5th Logo (September 4, 2006-August 5, 2007)


Logo: An orange glass disc, facing sideways to the house right/stage left, zooms in on the black background and turns to face the viewer. The word "РеН" fades in on the disc, while the top-right bit wipes out, making a room for the circling light streak and the "ТВ", which zooms in, and the logo shines afterwards.

Variants: TBA

Technique: CGI.

Music/Sounds: A synth string chord accompanied with the iconic three-note chime.

Availability: Extinct on TV, but appeared on several series and saved on DVDs.

6th Logo (August 6, 2007-May 3, 2009)


Logo: On the dark brown gradient background, a bunch of diagonal amber stripes, with rapid-scrolling still images of shows produced by REN TV inside (ala Marvel Studios), rain down, forming a big diagonal stripe. Then the stripe transforms into the orange-red ring, which in turn flips to reveal the 2007-2010 REN-TV logo, consisting of "РЕН" on the dark brown circle with the thick orange-red border around it, in center of the brown striped background, then the logo flashes to the guitar chord, becoming a little flat and shines.

Technique: CGI.

Music/Sounds: An energetic-sounding techno music, ending with the guitar strum.

Availability: Extinct.

6th Logo (alternate version) (August 6, 2007-May 3, 2009)


Logo: On the dark brown-crimson background, we quickly zoom on and stop at orange-red diagonal stripes. One of the stripes turn into the REN-TV logo in same actions as the last logo (morphing into the ring and into the logo, flattening a little and shining), but this time it's on the right and against the brown/orange-red/dark red striped background, while "представляет" is wiped in on the left by the light.

Variant: The New Year's Day variant with snow falling in the background exists.

Technique: See the last logo.

Music/Sounds: See the last logo.

Availability: Extinct.

7th Logo (May 4, 2009-February 7, 2010)


Logo: In the darkness, we see some parts quickly forming the gray Frisbee-shaped device with the orange-red LED blinking, which soon shuts off, and flips around to reveal the logo and zooms back quickly to the comfortable distance on the animated crimson background with concentric rings and the word "представляет" appears below.

Variant: A variant without "представляет" appearing exists.

Technique: CGI.

Music/Sounds: An echoing beep followed by short techno soundtrack with the three-note chime played on the synthesizer.

Music/Sounds Variant: The variant mentioned above, doesn't have the three-note chime.

Availability: Uncommon. Available on a few DVD-released television series. The variant was used as the network ID.

8th Logo (February 7, 2010-February 2011)


Logo: Depending on the time:
 * Nighttime/Black: The 2010 REN-TV logo, consisting of the amber circle with the slanted "РЕН" in the futuristic font cot out, with amber and black shadows, zooms out to the near top on the worn black background then the slanted "ПРЕДСТАВЛЯЕТ" with the tangerine shadow slides in from the left, then everything slowly zooms in.
 * Daytime/Amber: Same as the Nightime version, but with the black logo and "ПРЕДСТАВЛЯЕТ" with the elongnated black shadow and the amber background with the light on the top.

Technique: 2D computer animation.

Music/Sounds: The whoosh followed by the synthesized wind-blowing sound.

Availability: TBA

9th Logo (February 2011-2013)


Logo: On the gray background, the glossy REN-TV logo zooms in slowly and shining, while "ПРЕДСТАВЛЯЕТ" wipes in below and zooms in slowly as well.

Variants:
 * The variant with the glowing logo and italicized "ПРЕДСТАВЛЯЕТ" against the black background, flickering in one-by-one.
 * The New Year's Day variant used between December 2010 and January 2011, the logo is made out of ice against the dark blue background with snow falling and "ПРЕДСТАВЛЯЕТ" appears and shines.

Technique: CGI.

Music/Sounds:
 * Regular: An ethereal pad sounder.
 * Variant: A whoosh followed by a laser zap, with the techno rave theme with some male yelling sounds in the background.
 * Christmas: An electronic track with some wind chime sounds.

Availability: Rare.

10th Logo (August 2011-April 2012)


Logo: Against the orange gradient background,the logo pops out while orange circles pop out like radio transmitter waves, the logo shines afterwards, then "PRESENTS" in Russian wipes in.

Variants: TBA

Technique: A combination of 2D animation and CGI.

Music/Sounds: A jazzy tune followed the six-note chime played on the acoustic guitar.

Availability: Available on a few DVD-released television series produced by Ren-TV.

11th Logo (April 2012-January 2014)
Logo: We see various rotating golden bars, one of them brings up the REN sphere logo from the previous 2 logos. "PRESENTS" in Russian then wipes in.

Technique: CGI.

Music/Sounds: TBA

Availability: TBA

12th Logo (January 2014-February 16, 2015)
Logo: TBA

Technique: 2D computer animation.

Music/Sounds: A slow calm 3-note piano theme.

Availability: TBA

13th Logo (February 16, 2015- )


Logo: On the black background, we see an orange ribbon rising, then bending to the bottom-right and to the left, forming the abstract uppercase Cyrillic "R", which looks like the backwards "4", while "РЕН ТВ ПРЕДСТАВЛЯЕТ" flips in letter-by-letter.

Variants: TBA

Technique: CGI.

Music/Sounds: Reversed piano ditty with some metallic sounds, followed by the piano ditty playing normally.

Availability: Current.