Loading was a short-lived Brazilian television network. Launched in December 2020, initially had programming focused on attractions about pop and geek cultures, series, movies, animations and esports. Its activities were discontinued in May 2021, no longer on air with unpublished productions. Headquartered in São Paulo, capital of the homonymous state, its concessions and structure belong to entrepreneurs José Roberto Garcia and Paulo Sérgio Garcia.
History
The channel is the brainchild of a group of entrepreneurs led by José Roberto Garcia and Paulo Sérgio Garcia, owners of Kalunga, and José Roberto Maluf, owner of Spring Comunicação and current president of TV Cultura. The Loading project was first announced in October 2020 as a channel with content aimed at pop, geek and Asian cultures, among others. Its licenses and physical structure were inherited from MTV Brasil, whose broadcasts ended in 2013, being replaced by Ideal TV and subsequently acquired in a public auction after a long process of officializing the sale, completed in 2014. Its physical structure consists of a building located in the Sumaré neighborhood (São Paulo), which were the headquarters of the defunct TV Tupi in the 1970s.
In an interview, Loading CEO Thiago Garcia said the channel would be an entertainment solution for a portion of the Brazilian population that does not have access to content via streaming.
At 6 p.m. on December 1, 2020, the website of the channel appeared, at the end of a mysterious countdown, a video in which a character simulating a hacker, under the pseudonym "Mr. 52X", announces that the channel will open on December 7 at 8:30 p.m.
On December 2, the channel announced a partnership with Sony Pictures Entertainment to allow the showing of more than 100 titles, including films, television series and anime. On the same day, it was announcedafter an agreement with the Valdemiro Santiago's Rede Mundialthat Ideal TV's signal would continue through the analog signals from the Star One C2 and SES-6 satellites.
On December 3 at 6 p.m., a live video of the channel is posted on its website for the public to follow the start of its operations over the internet. At the same time, a list of cities with the network's digital terrestrial signal was made available, as well as the channel numbers on pay-TV. At 7:59 p.m. on the same day, Ideal TV's terrestrial and subscription TV signals were interrupted and just over a minute later, the character "Mr.52x" appears directly from the station's switcher, speaking to viewers against the recent directions of entertainment on Brazilian terrestrial TV and the control of social media algorithms over the public, followed by the screening of the first episode of the anime Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas, with a countdown to the launch of the station in the upper right hand corner. After showing the episode, a "static" sign, inspired by the old Indian-head test pattern, with the message "Please stand by" and the Japanese word in the center of the screen, alternating randomly for scenes of a few seconds starring the "hacker".
On December 4, the channel signed a deal with Crunchyroll for the exclusive broadcast of anime in prime time, comprising slots between 6 p.m. and 1 a.m.
On December 7 at 8:28 p.m., after a sneak premiere of an episode of Transformers: Cyberverse the channel officially began its launch nationwide after its pre-launch phase in some areas.