WNET idents

Since 1971, the public television station WNET New York has used several idents on its programming.

Idents (as WNET)

1st ident

In 1970, you'd see "NET" sandwiched between "A PRODUCTION OF" and "EDUCATIONAL BROADCASTING SERVICE 1970". This logo is now extinct except for old tapes.

2nd ident

In 1971, WNET unveiled its first official ident: a green "13" and an orange "WNET" on a blue screen. The logo used a weird font. The logo was used until 1974 and is pretty much gone outside of tape trading.

3rd ident

In 1974, a new ident was created: on a black screen, red rectangles with white pieces shoot away from the viewer, with the white pieces forming "FROM NEW YORK". Then, the pieces shoot towards the viewer to reveal a dark blue screen. "WNET PRESENTS" zooms in. This logo is also gone outside of tape trading.

4th ident

This is probably WNET's most famous ident: on a black screen, a radar swoops from the top center of the screen and circles clockwise to form the New York City skyline with a red WNET outline in a futuristic font. As the radar circles clockwise two more times, WNET is filled in with white, the morning sky becomes night, and when the sky is completely dark, "FROM" and "NEW YORK" appear. This was used from 1984 to 1988.

5th ident

Starting with the 1988 documentary miniseries "The Mind" in 1988, this logo has "WNET" in a similar font to the 4th logo sliding to the right, one letter at a time, as "FROM" and "NEW YORK" appear in parallelogram outlines in space. This logo is much easier to find, given that it has appeared on PBS Home Video releases from 1990 to 1993, when the logo ended.

6th ident

The sixth WNET logo was adopted in 1993. It consists of a spotlight from a motion picture camera with the word NEW YORK revolving around it to the sound of clicks, with ethereal music in the background. This logo is most commonly found on episodes of Shining Time Station and Savage Planet.

The Current Ident