Web TV firm Joost, owned by the Scandinavian founders of Skype, has fired its chairman Mike Volpi, The Times reported on its online edition on Saturday.

Volpi, who continued as Joost chairman after leaving the chief executive role at end-June, joined then the venture firm Index Ventures, who was part of consortium bidding $1.9 billion to Internet auction house EBay Inc for 65 percent stake of Skype.

Skype co-founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis had contacted several private equity firms in an effort to launch a bid to buy back their old business, sources have said.

On June 30 Joost, an early pioneer in bringing popular TV shows and movies to the Web, said it was dropping its consumer service, cutting jobs and losing its high-profile chief executive Volpi as it struggles to find revenue to survive.

Joost has programming deals with CBS Corp, Viacom Inc and Warner Bros among others.

Joost launched with much fanfare in 2007 as the latest venture of Skype founders Friis and Zennstrom. Before Skype, the Scandinavian entrepreneurs founded KaZaa, a file-sharing service popular with music and entertainment fans for sharing songs and video clips.

Volpi, a former rising star within Cisco Systems Inc joined Joost soon after.

Mr Volpi was removed from the board of directors and from his position as chairman of Joost by shareholder vote. The company and its board of directors conducting an investigation into Mr Volpi's actions during his tenure as CEO and as chairman, a Joost spokesman told The Times.

No-one at Joost was immediately available to comment. (Reporting by Tarmo Virki)

Software Viacom