A Battle Royale between the towns and cities of the UK is presently taking place.

The great thing is, for once, the chips are stacked in Birmingham’s favour.

The Culture Secretary has set pulses racing from Glasgow in the north to Plymouth in the south after announcing plans to move Channel 4 out of London.

And be in no doubt, a move out of the capital is the plan – the Government doesn’t do something this unpopular in its back yard without meaning it.

And there is good reason (outside its back yard) to mean it.

This is all about getting a television sector which reflects the country that pays for it.

The fact of the matter is it has to be here.

Channel 4 is not the BBC. It can’t just lift and shift to Salford and wish people all the best.

Channel 4 logo

It is a public-service broadcaster which is funded by advertising – so its commercial offer cannot be weakened.

Meanwhile, at 95 per cent of the advertising industry is based in a small corner of the capital.

While it is laudable the Government is seeking to address London-centricity, it can’t ignore it. Channel 4 needs to be in a place where it can access the advertising agencies of the capital and in Birmingham it is an hour away, soon to be less. Nobody else can offer that.

There is another reason.

As I have pointed out before, less than two per cent of the BBC’s television output is made in the West Midlands – but the people of the West Midlands pay for a quarter of it.

The truth is the country has made a small step towards correcting a historic wrong of focusing everything on London – but it is nowhere near there.

The north has MediaCity and there has been a perceivable benefit to coverage and engagement with the north on television.

This simply has not happened in the West Midlands – the second-largest conurbation in the country. If the Channel 4 process does not correct this then Karen Bradley still has a problem on her hands.

Investing in Birmingham also gives Channel 4 the opportunity to invest in modern Britain – the youngest and most diverse part of the country.

And the future is digital.

What better place to come than the home of BBC Three? Our national broadcaster has identified Birmingham’s strength in this area – it makes sense they should follow.

But “what about the independents?” will come the calls from our friends up north – pointing out that far more small programme-makers are based around Greater Manchester than Birmingham.

That is true, but in truth it is a virtue of the broadcasting sector problems this shake-up aims to correct.

When Pebble Mill was in Birmingham, there was a flourishing sector of sound experts, post production and so on.

They took it away and what happened.

So yes, since the Government intervened to make the BBC fairer there has been a positive impact on the broadcasting sector in the north. Objective achieved.

Next stop Birmingham.