Anime Central was a British television channel owned by CSC Media Group. The channel launched on 13 September 2007. It was first announced on 5 August 2007, though its license first appeared on the Ofcom website in January (initially named "Toon TV", this was changed to Anime Central in June). The channel ran from 9pm to 6am, free-to-air on Sky's Digital TV Platform, channel 199; and it was the only channel broadcast in the UK and Ireland which was dedicated solely to showing anime.
Anime was only broadcast between 9pm and 6am. The channel originally timeshared with Pop Girl (another CSC Media Group channel) but more bandwidth was made available removing the need for the channel to timeshare. The extra broadcast capacity was then filled with the channel ident or teleshopping. The channel was shut down on 27 August 2008 being replaced with Showcase TV but Anime Central continued to be shown as a programming block on Showcase TV every night between 4am and 6am. Showcase TV was renumbered to channel 188 in September 2008. On August 3, 2009, Showcase TV became True Entertainment and the Anime Central programming block was removed completely.
Programming
The regular schedule comprised six series, with a different episode broadcast every day. These made a three-hour block, which was then repeated twice through to 6:00am. Each series was usually repeated once before a major schedule change was made, unless the series was much longer than the standard length of 26 episodes. On 1 March 2008, the schedule changed, first to three double-bills, then to two triple-bills. The reasons for the change were unknown and reactions to this change on the channel's forum were generally negative.
Initially the channel did not broadcast in anamorphic widescreen. Programmes made in 16:9 format were screened in letterboxed format. In 2008, a few late-season episodes of Ghost In the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: 2nd Gig were screened in 16:9 anamorphic.
Christmas marathons
Over the 2007 Christmas season, from 21 December 2007 until 4 January 2008, the regular schedule was replaced by marathons of these 3 popular anime shows: Cowboy Bebop (21 December 2007 – 23 December 2007) Fullmetal Alchemist (24 December 2007 – 29 December 2007) Bleach (30 December 2007 – 4 January 2008) Nine consecutive episodes of a series were shown each day to form a 4½ hour block, except on the final day of each series' marathon which had fewer episodes. Each block was repeated until 6:00am.
Subtitling
Although all series were initially broadcast in English, a popular topic of discussion on the Anime Central forums were member's preferences for Anime dubbed into English or in Japanese with English subtitles. Perhaps as a result of the high demand for both, during late 2007, the last repeat of the night of Cowboy Bebop and .hack//SIGN were broadcast in Japanese with English subtitles.
On-screen identity
Throughout the channel's life, it had a consistent red-on-black theme. All the channel's advertising, the "bumpers", the ident cards and the website used this same theme. In response to a request from the channel's brand manager, there was some discussion on the Anime Central Forums about possibly changing the red-on-black theme (amongst other suggestions about programming). However, none of the suggestions were taken up by the channel.