Project Canvas to be called YouView?

Project Canvas, the long-planned web-TV joint venture, will reportedly take the consumer branding YouView should it reach launch phase.

According to the Financial Times, the project has registered the title, which is believed to be a hybrid of YouTube and Freeview, at the Intellectual Property Office.

The YouView branding has also previously been mooted as being high on a shortlist of suggested names for the Canvas platform.

The Canvas partners - BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Five, Arqiva, TalkTalk, BT and Arqiva - claim that the project will upgrade the Freeview and Freesat platforms to support video on-demand and internet content.

The project, which was recently cleared by the Office Of Fair Trading of constituting a qualifying merger, was hoping to reach launch phase by the end of 2010.

The BBC's involvement in Canvas is expected to get final sign off from the BBC Trust by the end of June after receiving the provisional go ahead last December.

However, it is thought that regulatory delays have meant that the Canvas launch will now slip until spring 2011 as the partners face an uphill struggle to finalise the technical specifications.

Canvas director Richard Halton recently admitted that the regulatory process has made the timeframe for a 2010 launch "challenging".

He also confirmed that the search is on for an eighth Canvas partner to "add scale and expertise" to the project.