ViD (Alternative Russia)

ViD (stylized as ВИD) is the largest commercial television network in Russia. It was founded in 1987 during the twilight years of the Soviet Union, initially as a single station in Moscow, though in 1990, it started expanding across what was then the Russian SFSR, and eventually, the then-new Russian Federal Republic.

ViD is known for high-quality news programming, and is the third-largest commercial television network in the world, after the American ABC and Brazilian Globo. Its original ident, with a “creepy” mask of Guo Xiang, reportedly “gave Russian children nightmares” in the 1990s, and is said to have caused “angry phone calls” to the FCC when Russian programs were aired on PBS stations in the United States later in that decade; the current version is much less unsettling.

The acronym ViD has no meaning, and comes from the randomly-assigned callsign RVID-4 for their original station in Moscow (which may have been chosen as a reference to the English word “video”, and/or the Russian “televidenye” for television). ViD mainly sources its imported programs from the American NBC and FOX networks, as well as ITV in Britain. Original programming includes local versions of “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy!”, as well as several original series, mostly R-dramas and animatsiya?

Theme music

 * For news programs: “The Mission” by John Williams (licensed from NBC)
 * For sports programs: “Victory Road” by Edd Kalehoff (licensed from Turner Sports)
 * For local news on O&O stations: “The Tar Sequence” by Lalo Schifrin