Minimax is a European pay television channel aimed at children, headquartered in Hungary, and broadcasting to 11 Central European countries. The channel was also broadcast in Spain from 1994 to 1998 and Poland from 1999 to 2004. Minimax's policy goals include edutainment and non-violent programs.
As of 2018, the channel runs 24 hours a day. Previously, from 1995 though 2017, Minimax timeshared with Sportmanía, Musicmax, Game One, ITV Hungary, M+, Cool, Animax, and C8 over the years.
As the channel broadcasts in multiple countries in multiple languages with the same schedule (except commercial advertisements), program trailers and other presentation elements did not feature written information from 2004 to 2021, however, they started being rolled out again.
History
Minimax has its origins in Spain, where it was launched on 1 January 1994 as part of a 4-channel Sogecable package on Canal Satélite, broadcasting on the Astra 1C satellite for 13 hours a day, from 8am to 9pm. In 1994, Canal+ expressed its intentions to launch the channel across Europe and even to offer the Canal Satélite package to Latin American viewers. In 1995, the channel Sportmanía launched and began timesharing with Minimax. In 1996, Minimax reached a deal with Nickelodeon to broadcast the latter's shows on weekends. In May 1998, Minimax began broadcasting series from Fox Kids, initially as a three-hour block. However, by November 1998, Fox had purchased Minimax's broadcasts entirely and it was replaced by the Spanish version of Fox Kids on 15 November of that year. However, Minimax programming continued to be shown in the mornings for preschool audiences.
The current Central European iteration of Minimax began on 16 April 1999 when the Polish version of the network was launched. A version of Minimax was launched in Hungary on 6 December 1999, to coincide with the Christmas season. At launch, the channel aired only between 18:00-20:00 CET. Until 3 March 2000, it gradually extended its broadcast hours, and from that date onwards, the channel aired between 06:00-20:00 CET until 31 December 2017. This new version of Minimax focused on European-produced programming, some of it from the communist era, and providing it when no other children's channel did, and not showing violent content. This caused the channel to surge in popularity in Hungary.
On 2 May 2000, a regional version of the French television channel Game One (originally planned as Game Channel) began timesharing with Minimax, broadcasting between 20:00-22:00 CET. On 15 May 2001, Minimax began its test transmissions in Romania and Moldova, until the channel was fully launched in 1 June to coincide with Children's Day. On 27 August 2001, ITV Hungary took over Game One's time space.
In 2003, the Hungarian company Mediatech Media gained full control of the Minimax brand, previously having co-owned it with the original owners Groupe Canal+ and Cabeltechnologie. On 9 February 2003, ITV Hungary closed down. On 15 September 2003, M+ was launched, taking over the nightly slot. M+ was provided only smaller cable companies. Although most cable companies turned off the signal after Minimax signed off, UPC and UPC Direct after Minimax signed off instead aired the "Minimax for UPC" channel which broadcast programs from the now-defunct music channel Musicmax which was aired same channel space as Game One/ITV/M+ and Minimax.
On 23 December 2003, the Hungarian feed of Minimax started broadcasting in Czech when a test transmission occurred in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and on 1 January 2004, a fully localised Czech feed (though sharing with the Hungarian feed) was launched in those countries, taking over the channel space of the defunct TV channel Supermax on some providers, while the Supermax channel still aired on a few providers until 15 September 2004.
On 4 September 2004, M+ merged with Humor 1 and renamed as Cool. When it was still called M+, it has operated independently from Minimax since 6 December 2003.