Rai/Television Idents

Background:

Radiotelevisione Italiana S.p.A. (commercially styled as Rai and known until 1954 as Radio Audizioni Italiane) is Italy's national public broadcasting company founded in 1954. In 1950, RAI became one of the 23 founding broadcasting organizations of the European Broadcasting Union.

1st Logo (1954-1983)

Nickname: Sky Wireframes

Logo: On a scrolling sky background, a black square (blue in the colored version) consisting of a white stacked "TV" logotype fades in, with the name "r a i - radio televisione italiana" seen below. Various abstract 2D wireframe figures then scroll down and cover the background, as the logo fades in and out with each 10 seconds.

FX/SFX: The scrolling, the fading. Overall, the logo looks decades ahead of its time, giving reason for its longevity.

Music/Sounds: The ending of William Tell Overture by Gioachino Rossini.

Availability: Extinct. Was seen on startups and closedowns from the channel during its 30 years of use.

Editor's Note: None.

2nd Logo (1983-2011)

Nicknames: "Italy from Above", "The Italian Flag"

Logo:

• 1983-1988: On a dark blue background, a 4-pointed star flashes in the upper right part of the screen. After a bit, a globe displaying most of Europe, as well as some of Africa and Asia, fades in with grey land, a shiny metallic blue ocean, and a white halo surrounding it, and then it starts to zoom in as a tricolor rectangle glides in from the bottom of the screen, clearly colored like the Italy flag, as the background slowly lightens up. As the camera pans towards Italy, the rectangles then flip up as they rotate around and stand upright, right before the camera heads into the ocean as circles pulse out from Roma's approximate location on the map. The camera then dips below the "water" to eliminate the globe, but the circles continue for a while longer, and the rectangles spin into a stacked position as green, white, and red from top to bottom. "RAI" in a customized blue font then appears via a "blinds" effect, along with the full name "RADIO TELEVISIONE ITALIANA" in Helvetica and stacked next to the rectangles, and the entire logo shines with white cloud-like particles on the inside.
• 1988-2011: It begins the same way, but when the camera heads towards the ocean, a large silver object then pops up and zooms out, leaving a dark blue background as it reveals itself to be the "RAI" text from 1983, now redesigned to be separate and the A missing the crossbar. The logo then moves back as a tri-color parallelogram with the Italian flag's colors appears from behind the R and flies up to form the A's crossbar. The logo shines as "RADIO TELEVISIONE ITALIANA" fades in a different white font, arranged to the left.

Variants:

• From 1983-1988, a closedown variant has the color shifting reversed, starting with baby blue before fading to navy blue. The logo also lacks the shininess as the startup variant, along with the blue hue lightened, and the star reappears at this point.
• Starting in 1991, the logo was redesigned to include a crossbar on the A, and the parallelogram now resembles the Italian flag, plastering itself on the crossbar.

FX/SFX: Early CGI, but it looks pretty good for the time.

Music/Sounds: A calm, yet dramatic synth fanfare based on the opening notes of Il Canto degli Italiani.

Availability: Extinct. It was used as a startup and closedown ident during the time period.

Editor's Note: The logo had a surprisingly long timespan, ending 11 years after the logo was replaced twice!

3rd Logo (1983-1985)

Nickname: "The Three Shapes"

Logo: On a black background with a yellowish ground made of squares there's an floating azure flat version of the Rai logo from 1983-2000. We scroll in while a blue sphere, a red square and a green tetrahedron (original symbols of the 3 Rai generic channels) come in one at times and goes up the letter "A" of the words "RAI". The camera follows the shapes until the Rai logo is framed on the screen along with the squared ground. we see the 3 shapes going away from the screen and then the squared ground rotating away in the black background. The words "RADIO TELEVISIONE ITALIANA" appears one word at time.

FX/SFX: Early CGI, but it looks pretty good for the time.

Music/Sounds: A calm, yet eerie synth and three sounds when "RADIO", "TELEVISIONE" and "ITALIANA" appears.

Availability: Extinct, used for a short time on several Rai transmissions

Editor's Note: The theme, resulting darkness, and big blue lettering at the end can get to a few, but the logo's mostly nice and the music can be a favorite to many.

4th Logo (1985-1988)

Nickname: "The Three Shapes II"

Logo: On a blue/purple smoking background, we see the same three shapes of the logo before flying right to the screen releasing contrails of their color. They pass a glass version of the "RAI" word-mark of precedent logo who rotates an zooms down in almost the center of the screen and "RADIO TELEVISIONE ITALIANA" fades one word at time while the three shapes goes in the place of the words "RADIO", "TELEVISIONE" and "ITALIANA".

FX/SFX: Even better CGI than the precedent one, holds great for the time.

Music/Sounds: A piano-like theme who ends with three notes. Similar to the previous logo but a bit sped up.

Availability: Extinct. Used on several transmissions from 1985 to 1988

Editor's Note: None.

5th Logo (1988-1993)

Nickname: "The Three Shapes III"

Logo: On a smoky orange background, we see the three shapes from the precedent logos. They fly right to the screen where we see the letters of the wordmark of the precedent logos. The background becomes blue and the sphere becomes white. All the three shapes become horizontal lines, the glass word "RAI" goes to the center of the screen and the lines go to replace the horizontal line of the "A".

Variant: After 1991, the lines were vertical, to reflect Italy's flag.

FX/SFX: Same CGI as before.

Music/Sounds: A theme who always ends with three notes, which resembles the one of the precedent logo.

Availability: Used on several transmission from the late 80's to the early 90's.

Editor's Note: None.

6th Logo (1993-2000)

Nicknames: "Crystals", "Crayon", "No Three Shapes"

Logo: On a yellow background, we see some crayon paints of various colors coming out. When the screen is filled by crayon marks, a barrier made of crystal lines comes from down of the screen and the RAI logo from the time, made of glass, with the horizontal line on the "A" with the colors of the Italian flag fades.

FX/SFX: The crayon paints moving, the background moving.

Music/Sounds: An collision of 7 notes with 3 different musical instruments (piano, electric guitar, and saxophone) with the same notes.

Availability: Used on several transmissions until 2000.

Editor's Note: The theme is a favorite of many.

7th Logo (2000-2010)

Nickname: "The Rai Butterfly"

Logo: On a blue background we see the half part of the 2000 Rai butterfly logo. It opens his second part, the words "Rai" (in Ollie Wollie Bold font) fades in and 2 seconds later the logo fades away.

FX/SFX: The butterfly opening and the fading.

Music/Sounds: A short dramatic fanfare.

Availability: Used on programs broadcasted by Rai until 2010.

Editor's Note: None.

8th Logo (2010-)

Nicknames: "The Rai Square", "Still Square", "Square of Boredom"

Logo: We just see the new Rai logo (a blue square with the words "Rai" in white in the same wordmark of before) fading in and out.

FX/SFX: The fading.

Music/Sounds: None.

Availability: Currently in use in some Rai's programming. This is likely to be seen after the Eurovision logo on each broadcast of the yearly contest in Italy.

Editor's Note: None, it's just boring.