Big Centre TV - the local station for Birmingham and the West Midlands - has joined forces with a rival city network 18 months after the channel launched.

Made Television, which is already broadcasting local TV channels in Bristol, Cardiff, Leeds and Tyne and Wear, has taken over the station in a merger deal which will see Big Centre TV rebranded to 'Made in Birmingham'.

Big Centre TV eventually hit the airwaves in February 2015 but not before it suffered a very difficult birth.

In 2012, City TV won the bid from the Government to licence a new local TV station and was due to launch it in November 2014 as 'City 8'.

In August 2014, the company fell into administration with debts of more than £170,000 and was eventually taken over by a new team called Kaleidoscope TV, led by former ATV presenter Mike Prince.

Made Television, which was one of the original bidders to win the licence in 2012, will cover news spanning the West Midlands including Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Coventry and Stoke.

It is currently based in studios in Walsall where it will continue to operate but a spokesperson for the company said they were also assessing their options.

Made in Birmingham will start broadcasting on November 1 and add more than 3.2 million potential viewers to the 'Made in' network.

Made Television's chief executive Jamie Conway said: "We are investing significantly in our city TV portfolio in order to build our reach in some of the UK's most exciting and economically active regions.

"The addition of Birmingham to our network brings an established platform in the UK's second city and enables the Made TV network to offer viewers highly engaging and relevant content and advertisers local, regional and national targeting, at scale.

"There is an increasing demand from the public for less homogeneous London-centric programming.

"The feedback we receive from our viewers is that there is a growing disconnection between people living in major cities outside of the capital and the nature of the programming content that is being presented to them.

"Our experience shows us that there are strong regional differences that should be celebrated and we are delighted to be pioneers of this new approach to television broadcasting."

Subject to approval of the deal by government watchdog Ofcom, Made in Birmingham will be available via channel seven on Freeview 7, 159 on Virgin and 117 on Sky.