VID (company)

VID-TV (ВИD) Russia
Private company
Industry Television
Founded 1990
Headquarters Moscow, Russia
Products Television programs
Website www.vid.ru

VID (Russian: ВИД, stylized as ВИD), lit. "View"; acronym of Vzglyad i Drugiye, "Glance and Others") is a TV production company in Russia, started by Vladislav Listyev since 30 September 1990. It is best known for producing the television programmes Wait for Me, designed to help people find loved ones and Pole Chudes which is a popular Russian version of Wheel of Fortune.

VID is known both for its logo, which has attracted controversy and popularity in equal measure for being visually creepy and austere and its wordmark, which uses the Latin D instead of the Cyrillic Д, so the logo appears as ВИD as opposed to ВИД.

History

The VID company was founded in 1990 by Listyev in the course of seeking funding for a television project known as Vzglyad, (meaning "glance" in Russian) as the show was intended to be a critical glance on Soviet political life. VID was not able to obtain a television license but instead supplied programs to the state-run ORT (Public Russian Television). Listyev later found some other programs including Pole Chudes, Theme, Chas Pik ("Rush Hour"), Zvyozdnyy Chas ("Star Hour") and Ugadai Melodiyu, the local version of Name That Tune.

In 1995 Listyev was appointed the director of ORT. One of his first orders was a temporary ban of all advertising on the channel in an effort to consolidate future ad sales in ORT's hands. On 1 March 1995, he was killed in an incident of which full details have never been provided, nor were his killers ever found. On 2 March, ORT suspended broadcasting all day, broadcast nothing but a still image of Listyev with the caption "Vlad Listyev has been killed". Alexander Lubimov would replace Listyev as head of VID.

VID allowed many celebrities to advance their careers: Sergei Bodrov Jr. was the director of Vzglyad after Listyev and Lyubimov, Leonid Yakubovich became a comedian due to his Pole Chudes appearances; Valdis Pelsh was the director of Ugadai Melodiyu (himself being a musician); and Zhdi Menya ("Wait for Me") was led by actor Igor Kvasha.

When founded in 1990, Listyev thought that the best variant of a logo would be a head of the Chinese Taoist philosopher Guo Xiang with a three-pawed toad on his head, which was found at the Museum of Eastern Art in Moscow. However, since the museum wouldn't allow the actual head to be used, Listyev fashioned a "mask" of Xiang's head using computer graphics.


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