Trident Television

Trident Television Limited was a British holding company with broadcasting interests.

It was created in 1969 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 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.

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. 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 the 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 (the successor to the ITA).

In December,1980 both Yorkshire and Tyne Tees had their contracts renewed but were forced to demerge. The Bilsdale transmitter was finally given to Tyne Tees as it was felt that Yorkshire had grown strong enough with the enlarged area it obtained through serving Belmont.

The demerger meant Trident's participation in ITV was effectively over. It continued to retain minority shareholdings in both companies which were eventually disposed of. Although it continued to receive rental funds from the studios and equipment leased to the two companies, it no longer earned funds from selling airtime.

The company then moved into the leisure and gaming industries, owning (amongst others) Windsor Safari Park, several London casinos and, for a short while, a chain of betting shops. In 1982 it merged with the leisure and brewing giant Grand Metropolitan.