And individual stations could be set up to serve towns and cities including Bromsgrove, Hereford, Kidderminster, Malvern, Shrewsbury, Stoke on Trent, Stratford and Telford.

The smallest West Midlands channel, in Kidderminster, will have a potential audience of just 35,000 people if given the final go ahead Mr Hunt said he hoped to create a series of genuinely local stations to exist alongside the ITV channels, which he described as regional rather than local.

Setting out his vision in an interview with the Birmingham Post, he revealed that the new stations would be available on channel 8 of Freeview services, as well as via Sky and Virgin.

They would be required to provide just one hour of broadcasting a day, which must include local news, but would be free to broadcast around the clock if they wished.

And if there was more than one bidder for a franchise, the winner would be chosen by broadcasting watchdog OFCOM based partly on the level of local support the bids enjoy.

Mr Hunt said: "I have always had a view that we have some of the best broadcasting in the world in this country, but the one area where we are underrepresented is local TV.

"At the same time, I am very conscious that the whole media world is changing. It's becoming cross platform. People are wanting to consume their news in totally different ways.

"So I have been trying to find a broadcasting policy that prepares media organisations for a multi-media, crossplatform mobile future, at the same time as plugging the gap in local audio-visual news, which I think is a big gap."

The Government had employed consultants Enders Analysis to come up with a business model for a local television company, in an effort to address concerns that a local news station was not financially viable.

It suggested the average cost of running a station would be £506,000 a year, based on a station with six administrative and managerial staff. This included one and a half hours of original programming a day, at a cost of £500 an hour to produce.

"We think there is a real opportunity for local entrepreneurs who want to do this, potentially an opportunity for local newspapers.

"There is also a huge amount of interest from universities, most of which have TV studios in their media studies departments and would be really interested in hosting local TV stations in their cities."

Allowing broadcasters to provide just one hour of programming a day would keep costs down, said Mr Hunt.

"We are going to stipulate a minimum of one hour of original news content a day. What they do in the other 23 hours would be up to them. They could repeat that one hour or they could do different types of broadcasting but they wouldn't be obliged to do more than an hour a day."

Potential channel operators would need to demonstrate they had a viable business plan, he said.

But once that hurdle was passed, licences would be awarded to those with the most community support rather than the highest bidder.

"We are going to have an auction process but it will be a beauty parade rather than an auction.

"The propositions that have the most viable business plans will be considered, because commercial viability is important.

"But we will look at people who have the strongest local credentials and people we think will be most able to get the support of their local community behind a new local community service."

The BBC could also subsidise some stations, after telling the Department for Culture, Media and Sport it was interested in purchasing the right to use footage produced by local stations in its own news coverage.

Residents who might watch local television, rather than create it, were also being asked to contact the Department to explain what they want from a local service, the Culture Secretary said.

"We are inviting local communities to tell us why they'd like to have local TV in their area so we can gauge the strength of local support."

Up to 20 licences will be awarded next year, for stations which are expected to begin operating in 2013.

Eventually, 65 stations will be up and running. Their locations have been determined by the locations of existing transmitters, but the Government believes that the rest of the country will eventually have local television services distributed via broadband rather than the airwaves.

Although the Government has made no firm decision about where the first 20 stations will go, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow, Cardiff and Belfast are expected to be included.

Wherever the first stations are located, they will be seen as paving the way for the rest.

"We very much see these as pioneers," said Mr Hunt.

To take part in the consultation, visit the Department for Culture, Media and Sport website at http://www.culture.gov.uk/consultations/8298.aspx