Cartoonito orders UK version of Hi-5

Turner Broadcasting has greenlit a UK version of hit pereschool series Hi-5. The local version of the show will air on Cartoonito, the preschool sister channel to Cartoon Network, which launched in the UK last year.

The show will debut later this year. It will also air on UK free-to-air broadcaster GMTV in the UK, starting 2009.

UK indie Darrall Macqueen will make the show for Cartoonito. The initial order is for forty half-hour episodes. Casting for the series is taking place now.

Cartoonito has made several UK commissions since launch. As well as Hi-5 it has greenlit local productios Go and be a Grown Up and Cartoonito Karaoke.

The overall ownership of Hi-5 changed hands earlier this year when Australian production company Kids Like Us was bought, for an undisclosed sum, by Southern Star and the Nine Network.