Locomotion (TV channel)

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Locomotion

Broadcast area	Ibero-america
Headquarters	Miami, United States Buenos Aires, Argentina Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Programming
Language(s)	Spanish Portuguese
Picture format	480i - 4:3 (SDTV)
Ownership
Owner	The Hearst Corporation (1996–2005) Claxson Interactive Group (1996–2002) Corus Entertainment (2002–2005) Sony Pictures Television (2005)
Sister channels	Space I. Sat Infinito Uniseries MuchMusic HTV Fashion TV Clase Playboy TV Hot Network Venus Cosmopolitan TV
History
Launched	November 1, 1996; 27 years ago (1996-11-01) (Latin America) September 15, 1997; 26 years ago (1997-09-15) (Spain and Portugal)
Closed	July 1, 2003; 21 years ago (2003-07-01) (Spain and Portugal) July 31, 2005; 19 years ago (2005-07-31) (Latin America)
Replaced by	Animax
Links
Website	www.locomotion.com

Locomotion was a Latin American cable channel dedicated to anime and animated shows targeting primarily an 18–34 audience, broadcasting movies, TV series and shorts. It was launched on November 1, 1996, and was closed down on July 31, 2005.^[1] It was also broadcast in Portugal through Cabovisão and TVCabo (now ZON Multimédia), and in Spain by satellite TV provider Vía Digital until 2003 due to administrative reasons with the TV operator.

Initially, Locomotion was a channel dedicated to animation for all ages, broadcasting titles from King Features (which was Hearst's animation division), other acquired shows, and adult animation for an evening block. However, the channel did not want to face competition against the already-established Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network, so the channel began removing the children's animation in favour for alternative animation, adult series, and anime by 1998, and by 2000, they began airing more alternative and adult-oriented animation from the US, the United Kingdom and Latin America, as well as anime series.^[2][3]

As the network grew, most of their programming consisted of Japanese animation titles from the likes of ADV Films, Bandai Entertainment, & Geneon and others as well as adult shows like South Park, The Critic, Crapston Villas and Duckman. Locomotion was also dedicated to showing works of experimental animation from all over the world throughout the day on-air and online. They aired experimental programming featuring video jockeys, artists who worked with video as a medium.

The network, whose corporate offices were based in Miami, Florida (though the network was not available in the United States aside from a few cable systems in southern Florida) was a joint venture between the US-based Hearst Corporation,^[4] (50%) and Claxson Interactive Group, Inc. (a subsidiary of the Venezuelan-based Cisneros Group) (50%).^[5] In May 2002, Cisneros Group sold its shares in the network to Canadian-based Corus Entertainment. The channel was purchased by Sony in 2005 and was later rebranded as Animax.