girls), effectively superseding Toon Disney in the United States. In the U.S., the new brand was to be "aimed at boys ages 6-14 and features content focusing on the themes of adventure, accomplishment, gaming, music and sports." A few months before the U.S. launch of Disney XD on December 8, 2008, Disney announced that it would be increasing its shares in Jetix Europe to 96% with the intention to buy the remaining shares in the company, effectively ending Jetix Europe's autonomy. Disney wanted full control of the company and to bring the European Jetix channels completely under the Disney umbrella, especially as this would enable Disney to have a singular unified strategy for its channels. After the completion of Jetix Europe's share buy-back offer, Jetix Europe was delisted from the Euronext Amsterdam stock exchange on 27 February 2009. In the gradual phase out of the Jetix brand, Jetix Europe's CEO Paul Taylor resigned, with John Hardie, the Executive Vice President of Disney Channels EMEA as CEO on 11 February 2009. John Hardie left Disney for ITN in June 2009 and was replaced with Giorgio Stock (who later became head of Turner Broadcasting System Europe). In June 2008, Disney France announced that Disney Channel and Jetix would merge operations; at the time, Jetix was being affected by falling carriage rates and came close to leaving the CanalSat pay-TV platform in France after protracted negotiations. Jetix France was the first European version of Jetix to make the conversion to Disney XD on 1 April 2009. In countries where Disney Channel didn't already exist, Jetix became Disney Channel (most notably the Central Eastern Europe and the Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia feeds). The last main Jetix feed in operation, Jetix Russia, made the conversion to Disney Channel on 10 August 2010. Also, in the countries where Jetix Play broadcast, it became a localised version of Playhouse Disney; however, the rollout was not synchronized with the conversion of the main Jetix networks in these areas, instead happening between 2010 and 2011, one region at a time. In Italy, the managing director of Jetix Italy, Francesco Nespega, led a management buyout; Jetix Italy was renamed as Switchover Media and was now responsible for two channels that were previously operated by Jetix Italy, pay-TV channel GXT and free-to-air channel K2. However, the main Jetix Italy channel remained at Disney and was rebranded as Disney XD in