by Peter Williams

The world of local TV has changed dramatically. It is no longer a question: should we support truly local television. The fact is that local TV will soon be on television sets all over the country.

Local TV is now at the heart of one of the most exciting initiatives in the British media for years. The new local TV station will serve communities of 200,000 to half-a-million. The first few may be city-based - but, it is vital that, in this first tranche of licences issued over the next two years, areas such as Kent without a huge city, should not be left out.

It is difficult accurately to forecast what "typical" local TV will look like. Perhaps it will be two or three, 2-hour segments of "local" programmes to be scheduled each day, including local news, with the local TV network (Channel 6) supplying programming for the remaining hours which each local station may choose to take or to ignore.

Perhaps a network which is more of a library of material that each station may draw from and schedule when they will. Crucially, the local stations should have control of the network, with a number of representatives on the board of the company which will run the network.

The first task is to produce that network. Companies, perhaps existing networks such as ITV or Channel 4, have been asked by the Coalition Government to express their interest. Once this spine is in place and its form settled, interested groups who think they can make a local TV station work financially, will bid for a franchise to "own" those local TV hours. Only then will the substance and breadth of local TV emerge.

Kent should be perfectly capable of sustaining a local station of its own. And local TV will produce hundreds of new jobs with the emergence of an estimated 50 to 80 stations. By any standard, the new jobs that will emerge through this initiative has to make local TV...Good News.

• Peter Williams is a founder member of United for Local Television (ULTV) and vice-chair of the Greg Dyke's Local Television Advisory Committee