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Opening Variant
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Closing Variant
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"Luke's Kingdom" Variant
Trident Television
From the Audiovisual Identity Database, the motion graphics museum
Compiled by
RSX-798
Editions by
Luke2505, Michael Kenchington and KosMir
RSX-798
Editions by
Luke2505, Michael Kenchington and KosMir
Background
Trident Television was a British holding company with broadcasting interests. It was created in August 1970 to deal with the issue of fairly allocating commercial airtime at the Bilsdale Transmitter in North Yorkshire. Allocating it to either of the two closest broadcasting companies, Yorkshire Television and Tyne Tees Television, would have given one an unfair advantage over the other when it came to commercial airtime sales. The solution was to create a holding company for the selling of airtime in both television regions, which is what Trident became.
Trident executed a reverse takeover of both Yorkshire Television and Tyne Tees Television in 1974, and initially planned to rename both under the Trident brand. This was, however, vetoed by the IBA.
The third prong of the Trident was long rumoured to be Trident's attempt to buy Anglia Television, potentially stemming from Yorkshire Television discussing cost cutting measures with Anglia Television in early 1969, which would have given the 2 companies shared use of outside broadcast units and regional offices. This was not the case however, with Anglia not even being considered as potential partners in Trident's interests. The third prong instead was focused on the company's non-broadcasting interests.
It also started US-based Trident Television Associates in 1979 to syndicate 23 of CBS' telemovies.
In December 1980, Yorkshire Television and Tyne Tees Television were forced to demerge as a condition of their ITV contract renewals. This effectively ended Trident's participation in ITV, with them disposing of their remaining shares in the company shortly after. Despite this, they continued to receive rental funds from the studios and equipment leased to the companies.
Trident eventually merged with Grand Metropolitan in 1982.
Logo (1975-1977)
Visuals:
- Opening: On a black background, there is the text on the left reading "trident colour television", alongside a Trident-shaped object on the right. The Trident is split by its prongs, with each prong coloured blue, red and green respectively. It is shaped so that it resembles the letter "T".
- Closing: There is the same Trident symbol from the opening logo on the left, and on the right is the text "trident colour television production". Below it is a copyright date.
Variant: On Luke's Kingdom, the symbol is larger and the text is yellow.
Technique: A printed image filmed by a camera.
Audio:
- Opening: The same bombastic 5-note horn fanfare as the 1969 Yorkshire Television logo.
- Closing: The end theme of the programme.
Availability: It was usually used to cover the Yorkshire and Tyne Tees logos on international prints of programmes.
- It was resurfaced on Talking Pictures TV airings of some season 2 episodes of The Main Chance, however most episodes use the Yorkshire Television logos of the time.
- It is presumably also kept on said show's Network DVD release as well.
- The variant with yellow text was seen on Luke's Kingdom.
