Under the proposals, produced by outgoing Johnston Press chairman Roger Parry, the stations, known as Local Media Companies, would be launched with the aim of providing local news in place of ITV, which is scaling back its local TV news provision.
Speaking at the launch of a consultation paper in Westminster, Shadow Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt said the Conservatives "would move quickly" on this proposal should they win the next General Election.
The new report anticipates that regional publishers are best placed to produce such content. Parry said: "Local TV can develop new revenue for newspapers." He added that the new LMCs would only work "if integrated with existing print operations and use volunteers".
Hunt said: "This is the sort of radical thinking that was missing from Digital Britain and I'm grateful to Roger Parry for producing such an excellent set of ideas.
"A vibrant local media sector should be a vital part of every community across the country. By looking at how government can help create new, sustainable business models in this sector, we'll ensure the long-term provision of local news and local journalism."
The Conservatives said the regulatory regime that local media companies operate in would need to be reformed to allow LMCs to be formed. This would be partly achieved by relaxing cross-media ownership rules and print media merger regulations to allow LMCs to establish themselves as multi-platform operators.
The Tories would also auction spectrum to create local television licences that would form a key part of these LMCs. The party statement said Ofcom had identified 81 different locations where such licences could be created, covering populations of about 500,000.
The consultation argues that the most effective way of allocating these new television licences would be for Ofcom to advertise them as a single bundle of about 80 licences, which would then be taken over by a single organisation acting as a "spectrum band manager".
This organisation would then auction them to independent local consortia, which were likely to be formed by existing local publishers and other interested parties.
.jpg)
.jpg)