Animax: Rise and Fall of a Channel

Inspired by Ákos's take on the situation, with the name being a reference to a documentary series he watched 2-3 years ago, here's my take on the rise and fall of Animax in Portugal, with a reference to Locomotion.
Anime has been airing on Portuguese television since the mid 70's at least. Back then, people couldn't distinguish anime from cartoons. If you ask someone in their 40's with the "what cartoons you liked when you were little?" they answer stuff like Maya the Bee, Wickie the Viking, Heidi, Marco and others.
Anime really catched on starting in the mid 90's. RTP and the newly-formed private broadcasters, SIC and TVI started airing anime to any great extent. It wasn't until 1996, when Dragon Ball premiered on Portuguese screens for the first time. The otaku community likes to thank Akira Toriyama and Fuji TV for that, and also the people who dubbed it.
Cable TV channels also offered anime as well. Canal Panda's most popular anime (until it got cancelled for the first time in 2010) was Doraemon, which was like learning English from Cartoon Network but in Spanish. Cabovisão (and later TV Cabo's satellite service) offered Locomotion, a channel from Latin America that was initially focusing on animation in general before becoming Animax's predecessor. Locomotion Iberia had to close in 2003, due to low ratings.
In 2007, AXN Portugal (and also AXN Spain) premiered Zona Animax, which could be a test for the new channel that was about to launch. And, in fact, they did. MEO was the first TV provider to carry it in April 2008 (together with Sony Entertainment Television, or Sony). Both channels launched on April 12th, 2008, and their dire fate came three to four years later.
The channel's first show at 21:30 was Ghost in the Shell. The first new anime to air on the channel was Initial D on May 25th. In March 2009 they premiered Insert Coin, a videogaming show from sister channel AXN. They premiered Shin-Chan in October 2009. They said that a Japanese version (with subtitles) was about to air, when, in reality, the Portuguese dub aired (the best one ever made).
At the start of 2010, the channel started to add some live-action content which led to the channel's eventual conversion in May 2010. As the months progressed, the channel started focusing more on live-action, which led to less anime hours. On May 8th 2011, the channel pulled the plug for good. It was replaced by AXN Black.
Eventually, the Animax dub of Shin-Chan premiered on Biggs in 2013.