The Government has said it wants Channel 4 to move out of London - with Birmingham pointed to as the obvious choice.

Authorities across the country have made their cases to bring the broadcaster their way from Westminster, including in the West Midlands.

The issue is high on the agenda for new Culture Secretary Matt Hancock, who has taken over from Karen Bradley in the latest Cabinet reshuffle.

Channel 4 bosses have been fighting the relocation but the Government has made commitments to move it with the broadcasting sector in the UK continuing to be London-centric.

As the Mail has recently reported, the Midlands is a black hole for broadcasting investment with a tiny fraction of BBC spend here as compared to any other region.

So why would Birmingham be right for Channel 4? Here are the answers...

BBC Three is coming here

BBC Three jobs are headed to The Mailbox
BBC Three jobs are headed to The Mailbox

If Channel 4 has an ideal bedfellow, it is BBC Three.

Both are targeting viewers in their teens and twenties and both have a remit to be edgy and innovative.

In truth, the future for that market is digital – savvy youngsters who know how to access content as and when they want it. BBC Three has already made a jump to online-only – if Channel 4 doesn’t occupy that space too, it will fall behind.

It costs less. A lot less

Westminster: Not a cheap place to be based

Channel 4 presently operates out of a large office in Westminster and faces pressure from on high to deliver better value for money for the taxpayer.

Good news! The cost of space in Brum is less than a third of our nation’s capital. Rents in London can push up to £90 per square foot – you’d get a nice chunk of Digbeth for about £20.

The city also has a strong record in attracting talent out of London – more twentysomethings leave the capital for Birmingham than any other city, and HSBC is presently in the process of shifting people across .

We are not held back by ‘how it’s always been done’

A lot of television in the future will be viewed on smartphones

Channel 4 is supposed to push boundaries.

It’s right there in its remit – it must demonstrate “innovation, experiment and creativity”.

Well, in a broadcasting world being turned upside down by digitisation, innovation is stifled by traditional broadcasting – you are either servicing a changing audience or you are not.

Birmingham offers a place where the television of the future can be created.

You want a young diverse audience? Guess what...

Young people? We have loads of them

Birmingham is the youngest city in Europe. Close to 45 per cent of it’s 1.2 million population is under-25.

In short, the city is where Channel 4’s audience lives.

Channel 4 also has to appeal to the tastes and interests of a culturally diverse society – big tick for Birmingham again! In excess of 40 per cent of the city are non-white.

The report in 2011 found 238,313 of Birmingham’s population were born outside of the UK – and 108 languages are spoken here.

Having all the main broadcasters in one city isn’t all that healthy

London. There's loads going on there

The argument that Channel 4 has to remain in London “because that is where the industry is” is the sort of self-fulfilling prophecy which holds the sector back.

The truth is that Channel 4 doesn’t produce itself, it outsources it. There is no compelling reason why that can’t happen in Birmingham – and we should worry as a nation were there.

By 2026, you’ll be able to access large swathes of London just as easily from Birmingham as from Westminster.

We are heading in the right direction

Steven Knight has big plans for production in the region

Birmingham is not a broadcasting success story – in fact, it has been more of a tragedy since the closure of Pebble Mill.

But there are some signs of recovery. The BBC Three move is one thing – and now Peaky Blinders founder Steven Knight is planning to open a world-class studio in the city.

Again, our broadcasting sector is grossly sub-par – but it is moving the right way.

You can’t represent the UK from London any more

London is brilliant. In the same way Shanghai, New York and Hong Kong are.

The truth is, while this country benefits from the global eminence of our capital, it is so different to the rest of Britain it is hard to see how a public service broadcaster could be based there.

In almost every economic metric – density of wealth, businesses GVA, property prices – it is a case apart from the rest of the country. Birmingham better reflects the UK.