One afternoon in 1965 we went shopping in Liverpool. It was buzzing. "What's happening?" asked my mum. "Our Gerry's on tonight," a shop assistant said. Wow! Gerry and the Pacemakers on Granada. We went straight home to watch.

By then television had been in ordinary homes for about 12 years. It had changed peoples' lives. After the war men came back wanting domestic stability. But they didn't want dull old stuff like hobbies and handicrafts. They were ready for "the telly". At first that meant the BBC. But when commercial television could no longer be avoided, someone in Whitehall dug out a template of the National Electricity Grid. That was to be the pattern for the "other side".

So ITV was born. But it was never, ever, commercial television. Yes, it took advertisements. But it had no competition. It was a series of regional monopolies, and money poured in.

Little old ladies who should have been sitting knitting, started screaming for Hughie Greene and Michael Miles. Television professionals became smug and stayed that way for generations. Neither ITV nor the BBC really faced any competition.

For three decades they milked the public's gobsmacked fascination.

It's only now that our television industry is facing commercial reality. It started when Rupert Murdoch's hijacking of a communications satellite gave us Sky TV. Our television failed to compete - witness the shambles of BSB. Now we have another shambles. ITV Digital, a licence to eat money, has the uncommercial managers of ITV trying to compete with the fiercely commercial managers of Sky. Oh well, you may say, this is the marketplace, and at last ITV has to enter the real world.

But the tragedy is that local programming is threatened because ITV has overstretched itself. Last Wednesday, a conference entitled "Regions and Nations" in Salford was attended by a clutch of ITV worthies. Regional ITV's deserved success in covering stories like foot and mouth was much quoted. Stuart Prebble, ITV's chief executive, promised more spending in the North.

But spending IN the regions is not spending ON the regions. Producing the digital channel Granada Breeze might save 50 Mancunian jobs but it won't tell Mrs Cannybody in Wigan anything about her area. Where's the commitment to programming about the regions?

It seems that the legislators and regulators are colluding with this fudging. The ITC pays lip service to local programmes, but it has always wanted to back the winners. It's capable of a casuistry, which makes Machiavelli look like the weakest link. It is now actually considering "standardising" the hours of local programmes required by each region. What does this mean? Cuts?

Local programming, particularly news, isn't cheap. Many regional ITV producers are worried that the freeing of the big companies to merge will mean that the obligation to make local programmes will be downgraded in order to ensure that the new company makes money. Someone must fight for them. Is there anyone out there who has the clout?

It needs a brilliant local hero - an MP who will root for regionalism, who genuinely believes in local programmes, and who would not hijack their worth to support the whole flawed business structure of ITV.

Within the ITC, some members may be hoping that a political champion might emerge to fight for a law on local programmes when the Broadcasting Bill goes to Parliament. The ITC will be saved from disloyalty that way. Please, someone come forward!

Our Gerry's greatest hit was "You'll Never Walk Alone". Right now, a lot of people in ITV regional programming feel that is exactly what they are doing. Who'll walk with them? Let's cut the lip service. Let's hear a cry for legislation to protect them. That way, something will be put back after 50 years of taking out. And it will ensure they never stop causing a buzz in Liverpool...or anywhere else, for that matter.

Lis Howellis former managing editor of Sky News. She is now managing director of bowlofcherries ltd and visiting lecturer in broadcast journalism at City University

lis@bowlofcherries.com