VID (TV Company)

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VID is a Russian TV Company that makes the show Wait for Me, designed to help people find their loved ones and also Pole Chudes which is a Russian version of Wheel of Fortune.

[edit] History

The VID TV Company was found in 1990 by Vladislav Listyev when he tried to make his show Vsglyad more funded. VID means "view" in Russian and it was supposed to be a "view" on Russian and Soviet politics. The VID TV company was not able to obtain a separate channel but instead had to base itself on the state First Channel. Listyev later found some other programs including Rush Hour, Field of Wonder, Guess the Melody and Star Hour.

In 1995 Listyev went to work on ORT. He was later killed. VID was then headed by Aleksandr Lyubimov.

VID allowed many celebrities to advance their careers: Sergei Bodrov Jr. was the dictor of Vsglyad after Listyev and Lyubimov, Leonid Yakubovich became a comic figure due to his Field of Wonder appearances and Valdis Pelsh was the dictor of Guess the Melody (himself being a musician). Now the program Wait for Me is led by actor Igor Kvasha.

[edit] Symbol

As the USSR was crumbling the VID TV Company decided that (what was about to be known as) a shocking symbol was appropriate for its logo. They hence chose the, what would become known as, (the) Vid Mask. It was introduced by Vladislav Listyev in 1990 when the company was formed. It is a stone mask that was copied directly from the Museum of Eastern Art in Moscow. The museum then filed complaints to the company. To get themselves out of hot water, the mask was altered using CGI.

The mask resembled something very scary (a somewhat demented version of a man's face) and many complaints from children followed as they were extremely frightened to see the horrible mask appearing each time they watched their favorite show. To add to the fright, it was accompanied by horror music (five-note music; dum-dee, dum-dee, dum!) and bright flashes of black and white light. The flashes were removed in 1999 due to epilepsy concerns and in 2002 the mask was made smaller and placed on a yellow screen instead of a black screen (a black screen inducing more fear due to color contrast).

Originally the logo consisted of the following: a ball is bouncing on a trampoline, falls off and is augmented in size to fill the screen. It then changes colors from black to white to black to white to black and the white Vid Mask appears. ВИД is written underneath.

The VID mask stirred a great deal of controversy in Russia([1]) and many children had psychological problems like phobias because of it. There were petitions to terminate its exposition. In 1999 the flashing lights were removed due to epilepsy complications. The scary music was also removed and a new logo was introduced: a match is lit and the VID mask is formed from smoke.

In 2003 this was replaced by the tiny VID mask on a black and yellow background. Logo specialists have said that a smaller VID mask exposure causes less fright.