THIS week, Channel 4 made a historic announcement which will have an impact on all of us who watch TV, as well as those of us who make it. On Wednesday the broadcaster revealed ambitious plans to relocate the channel’s headquarters from London to Leeds and to set up satellite hubs in Glasgow and Bristol.

It’s the biggest change to the structure of the organisation since it was set up 35 years ago. For Scotland’s creative industries the news is a superlative boost, and a testament to the dynamic bid spearheaded by Glasgow Council leader Susan Aitken and broadcasting legend Stuart Cosgrove, whose weekly column appears underneath.

The boost is more than a matter of geography. Moving part of the broadcaster physically out of the capital is part of a significant shift in the broadcasting mindset.

As competition for eyeballs becomes harder and harder, Channel 4 has made a strategic decision to enshrine in its very structure closer ties to the nations and regions of the UK as a route to better reflect the diversity of Britain and in turn, secure its own future relevance.

Channel 4 has also pledged to increase the proportion of the money it spends on commissioning programmes made outside London from 35% to 50% by 2023, a change worth more than £250 million a year.

This latest push accelerates a wider process that has been slowly under way for more than a decade. Alongside similar commitments by the BBC and other broadcasters, it means that more TV programmes and other content will be made in Scotland and other nations and regions of the UK.

When I first moved to Glasgow from London 16 years ago my exodus from the capital was seen as a truly oddball move by my peers.

I was born and brought up in London and had lived my whole life there, as had many people I worked alongside in TV. In 2002 I was a producer on BBC’s Panorama programme when I fell in love with a brilliant Scot, got married and moved 350 miles north.

I remember the bizarre, sometimes horrified, reaction my announcement caused in the BBC current affairs department when I said I was relocating to Glasgow – colleagues visibly recalibrating their previous perceptions of me as a smart, ambitious go-getter and suddenly marking me down as a lovestruck loon who was throwing her career and life away.

I loved living in this city from the moment I moved here and wanted to stay. The only frustration was that I couldn’t carry on working on the current affairs programmes I had done in London, and that made no sense to me. I was an experienced investigative producer and journalist, and quickly found a steady stream of cracking stories – most of them of broad interest to a wide UK network audience. So why weren’t they being made?

In 2008 I left my staff job at the BBC and set up a tiny TV company in the back bedroom of our house. Firecrest Films was open for business and over the next few years carved a minor reputation as a producer of award-winning scoops and investigations for Panorama, Channel 4 News and C4 Dispatches. But in TV terms we were utterly niche.

Today it’s a completely different story. Scotland’s wider TV industry is booming and Firecrest has rapidly expanded alongside.

The company is one of more than 15,000 creative companies and enterprises in Scotland, collectively turning over more than £7 billion in 2015, an increase of £600m from the previous year.

Film production might catch the eye more, but it is television that has quietly driven the boom in Scotland’s screen economy, providing the major value to the sector and the biggest opportunity for growth.

Firecrest has transformed too. In January 2017 Channel 4 took an investment stake in the business through its prestigious Growth Fund, supercharging the company’s growth and allowing us to diversify, expand and hire some of the best executives in the business.

In 12 months we tripled our turnover, becoming the fastest growing independent TV production company outside London.

Tonight we’ll be crossing our fingers as we troop up the red carpet in Glasgow for this year’s Bafta Scotland awards, honouring the country’s top talent in film, TV and game.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon will be among those in their gladrags celebrating the success of Scotland’s creative industries. Many of the nominations cover output telling Scottish-based stories and experiences to the rest of the UK and the world beyond.

In TV terms there is much to celebrate. Scotland is home to a plethora of dynamic, independent companies producing some of the most exciting output on our boxes.

Just as Channel 4 is changing and embracing diversity and the nations and regions as a fundamental pillar in its future success, so too is the television production community in Scotland. The last decade has seen a sweep of entrepreneurial start-ups, frequently headed by brilliant women.

Synchronicity Films, founded by Claire Mundell, is the company behind blockbuster drama The Cry, which screened on BBC1 last month with a real-time audience of six million and receiving rave reviews. Raise The Roof Productions, set up by Jane Muirhead and Sarah Walmsley, is one of the key features suppliers in the UK with 17 network titles in property, craft and lifestyle shows and international sales to more than 40 countries.

Finestripe Productions, founded by Katie Lander and Sue Summers, and Hello Halo, founded by Wendy Rattray, deliver provocative content and award-winning hits.

Where TV is made is not just an economic issue, it matters to all of us who want to watch programmes that resonate, illuminate and entertain.

Last week, broadcasting regulator Ofcom published its inaugural annual report on the BBC and laid bare how starkly diverse and working class audiences were deserting BBC TV channels. Ofcom found that in the last seven years viewing by BAME audiences had declined by 31%, almost twice the level at which BBC consumption by white audiences has dropped. Those from lower socioeconomic groups also showed a sharp decline in BBC viewing, compared to the middle classes.

Equally concerning is the drop in young audiences. And it’s not just the BBC – all the terrestrial channels, such as ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5, have reported pronounced declines in viewers aged 16-34 as young people increasingly switch to Netflix, Amazon and YouTube.

Making more programmes outside London is a shrewd business strategy, as well as meeting a democratic need. If TV is made by a more diverse cohort of people, with different accents, backgrounds and cultural tastes, then it might be more relevant to those who watch it.

Already, the people who make TV in Scotland come from a broader economic and social background than those in London.

Glasgow, where the bulk of the production industry is based, is an affordable city to live and work in. Don’t get me wrong – the industry here is still overwhelmingly middle class, but our office is much less posh and more like the city outside than you’d find in TV offices in other parts of the country.

A more diverse workforce inevitably means a richer and wider seam of ideas, and more interesting and diverse content. So the fact that more TV will be made outside London by a broader group of people can only be a fantastic thing for anyone who wants to sit on the sofa, put their feet up and be entertained.

Nicole Kleeman is the founder of Firecrest Films which is nominated for four Bafta Scotland awards tonight.