Trident Television

Trident Television Limited was a British holding company with broadcasting interests. Trident acquired Halas and Batchelor (well known for their cartoons), Scarborough Zoo, Windsor Safari Park, Trident Casinos, Playboy Club, Watts & Cory Scenery, Victoria Casino, The Clermont Club, as well as Trident Holdings (Australia Pty Ltd) and several other companies.

Trident was set up in August 1970 to deal with the problem of fairly allocating commercial airtime from a television transmitter at Bilsdale in North Yorkshire which straddled the catchment areas of two Independent Television (ITV) companies. The transmitter itself was owned by the Independent Television Authority (ITA), the governing body of ITV. Due to the geographical nature of the area it served, allocating the transmitter to either of the two closest broadcasting companies, Yorkshire Television and Tyne Tees Television, would have given one an advantage over the other in terms of selling commercial airtime.

By October, the name "Trident" was chosen, while share holders in Yorkshire had agreed to the merger, with Yorkshire Chairman Sir Richard Graham becoming Trident chairman and Yorkshire Managing Director Ward Thomas becoming MD at Trident. Three other Yorkshire TT directors and Telefusions Mr Wilkinson, Mr James Hanson and made up the Trident board.

The solution was to create a holding company for the selling of airtime in both television regions but with each company retaining its own separate identity and management control. The creation of the company created the second largest ITV sale area with 16%. Although Yorkshire had engaged in discussions with Anglia Television in early 1969 over shared use of outside broadcast units and regional offices as a cost-cutting measure, Anglia were never considered as potential partners for the new holding companies' interests. The third 'prong of the trident' therefore became the non-television interests of the company. However, in separate developments the Belmont transmitter was reallocated to Yorkshire in 1974. On 1 January 1974, a reverse takeover of both YTV and Tyne Tees was performed by Trident. Plans to rename the stations 'Trident Yorkshire' and 'Trident Tyne-Tees' were vetoed by the Independent Broadcasting Authority, but it pre-tax profit rose to £2.76 million, with its profits raising to £4.82 million in 1976, and increase again to £7.355 million in 1977. In 1977, the group expand into other remits with the purchase of Windsor Safari park for £3 million, before it was sold on in 1984.

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