AXN started its broadcast in 1997, and in the Asian region except India, it was Sony Pictures Entertainment's only channel until late 2003 - early 2004, when Animax began broadcasting. Almost all Japanese anime that was broadcast on AXN at that time, moved to Animax when the channel began broadcasting. In Malaysia, AXN started on Mega TV, a cable channel owned by TV3 (also owned Ambang Klasik at that time), then after Mega TV ceased in October 2001, Astro picked up the channel, which I remember was broadcast on channel 15, later channel 17 (moved in October 2003). Channel 15 would be later used by astro @15, the chat interactive channel, and Animax Asia's early years on Astro was on that channel but broadcast some programmes between 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.., later reduced to only 9:00 a.m., continued until 30 August 2006. A day later, Animax Asia began broadcasting on Astro on channel 75, later moved to channel 25 and 715 when the channel renumbering happened in October 2007. The channel's broadcast on Astro ceased on 1 January 2022, but on Unifi TV, they still broadcast although the channel had also left the channel line-up before returning. What I saw that there were mostly promos, including promotion for movies released at that time by Sony (AXN's parent company): 1:33 - 1:53 Hollow Man 4:59 - 5:29 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, contest promo appeared on 12:04 - 12:39 9:34 - 10:08 The Patriot At that time, new movies in Thailand and South Korea were usually released on Friday and Saturday respectively. Both countries now released almost all movies on Thursday. Tonight's programmes: 1:54 - 2:09, 6:25 - 6:39 and 14:15 - 14:30 the first and last likely to be Friday, and the second one was on a Saturday Promos are mostly Singapore time, although 7:00 India was mentioned - time would only mention Singapore and Thailand, later Hong Kong and Indonesia in the same time zone respectively added 5:29 - 6:14 AXN Action Series: Relic Hunter (Monday), Pacific Blue (Tuesday), Earth: Final Conflict (Wednesday), Profiler (Thursday) and The Net (Friday) - 9:00 pm 2:54 - 3:24 Goodyear ad (of course Malaysian production) 4:29 - 4:48 AXN ident (Action TV) including coming up next - Ghostsweeper 12:49 - 13:04 The Perfect Storm movie trailer I think at that time large part of AXN's content included anime, which would later be replaced with more action series and movies especially after the introduction of Animax Asia. Also, AXN's content was mostly different compared to other channels, and until the ownership change to KC Global Media in 2020, Sony Pictures Entertainment's channels seems to be more Asian-oriented with ONE that broadcast Korean content while Animax and GEM broadcast respective Japanese contents of animation and entertainment series. Even channels that broadcast Sony content including movies at that time, such as HBO, Star Movies and Hallmark Channel had less influence on contents broadcast on AXN - although I remember that The Agency was broadcast on both Hallmark Channel and AXN...
AXN joined Sky Cable here in the Philippines in May 2000 that the channel had already seen on Home Cable and Destiny Cable back then. Sky intended to bring back most of Star Channels (Star Movies, Star World, Channel V, Star Chinese Movies and Viva Cinema) in Sky’s lineup. Solar Entertainment (original channel) joined Sky at the same time.
Got anymore from AXN 2000-2003? I remember bumpers for anime such as You're Under Arrest seasons 1 and 2, Boys Be, Dual, Ninku, Grander Musashi, El Hazard, Now and Then Here and There, Curious Play, Oji The Section Chief and even ads for anime movie marathons
