Jeremy Hunt will promise a “voice” for communities Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt is to invite companies to run local TV stations and make the proposed new services a reality.
Addressing broadcasting executives at the Oxford Media Convention, he is due to say the initial schemes will be focused on “10 to 12” major cities.
He will ask firms to register an interest by 1 March.
Licences for local – rather than regional – television services are to be handed out before the end of 2012.
Mr Hunt has long championed the concept of US-style local television, where many cities, rather than wider regions, have their own local news and entertainment coverage.
In a speech to the convention, he will say: “To make this vision a reality I am today inviting existing and new media providers to come forward with suggestions as to how this network channel – or local TV ‘spine’ – could work.
“It is crazy that a city like Sheffield, for example, does not have its own television station like it would have in most other developed countries”
Jeremy Hunt Culture Secretary
“For consumers what this will mean is a new channel dedicated to the provision of local news and content. One that will sit alongside other public service broadcasters, offering a new voice for local communities, with local perspectives that are directly relevant to them.
“We will not be prescriptive. We will wait for the necessary technical assessment to be completed and we will listen to the commercially viable proposals that come forward.
“Our goal is to be able to award the relevant licences by the end of 2012, and for local TV to be up and running soon after.”
A panel set up to examine the idea said local television channels might start by broadcasting in only 10 to 12 areas, adding that it would take “significant effort” to make the plan a success.
In an interview at last year’s Edinburgh International Television Festival, Mr Hunt described the UK media as “chronically over-centralised”.
He said: “It is crazy that a city like Sheffield, for example, does not have its own television station like it would have in most other developed countries.”
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.