Kangaroo Could Launch This Autumn

Kangaroo – the joint internet TV venture between BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4 – is now likely to launch this autumn, months earlier than expected.

The project was reported to be in the final stages of development in March (see Kangaroo “In Final Stages” Of Development) and is now being prepared for a beta launch before a full rollout later this year.

John Cresswell, ITV’s chief operating officer and finance director, said: “With all new technical launches, you always have a soft launch before you unveil the whole thing.

This comes just a week after reports of a possible name change for the project – a shortlist of names has been drawn up, with some executives backing SeeSaw as a serious contender (see Kangaroo Could Launch As SeeSaw).

Ashley Highfield is due to review the whole service when he joins Kangaroo as chief executive on July 1.

Speaking about ITV, as its first quarter results for 2008 were published, Cresswell said that the company will move forward without Dawn Airey, who surprisingly quit in April to join Channel 5 (see Dawn Airey Leaves ITV For RTL).

He said: “We will move on. We enjoyed working with [Dawn] but she has chosen to do something else. We have a really strong team in place.”

ITV: 020 7843 8000 www.itv.com