Last year... possibly the year before, I told you about Kangaroo. What? I missed that class. Fill me in. Okay, Kangaroo is the internet TV joint venture between BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4. Exciting huh? Well, it is set to launch this autumn, which is a lot sooner than I expected.

The ITV chief operating officer and finance director, John Cresswell, speaking as ITV's first quarter-results for 2008 were published today, said the partners were hoping it would launch in September or October. Cresswell said that the BBC's outgoing director of future media and technology, Ashley Highfield, who will join Kangaroo as chief executive on July 1, would review the service when he joins and that there would be a be a beta launch before a full rollout.

"It is going really well. Ashley's appointment is fantastic. With all new technical launches, you always have a soft launch before you unveil the whole thing," said Cresswell. "It is about making sure that when the consumer gets to it, it won't fall over. No one wants a Terminal 5 online. We are pretty confident."

Now, what this Kangaroo thing means is we'll be getting an on-demand content service which will "bring together an exciting collection of over ten thousand hours of the very best of the UK broadcasters' current and archive programming, with the convenience, simplicity and ease of use of one overarching service." Basically, it'll be like the BBC iPlayer, only with more choice in terms of catch-up shows and, with the added bonus of classic TV shows too!