SMITHFIELD — A new television channel will debut this summer. The Town of Smithfield and Johnston Community College have partnered to launch the station, which will begin broadcasting July 1.

“It’s in its infancy right now,” said Justin Merritt, the town’s finance director. “It should be a huge asset for the town.”

The channel will go out on Time Warner’s local cable system. Most of the funding will come from a state tax on cable, satellite and telecommunications operators, Merritt said.

JCC President Dr. Don Reichard was interested in the project when he first took office, but faced more barriers then.

“Everybody in town, every agency, was very interested, but nobody had the money, so the idea got dropped,” said Jeanne Whisnant, vice president of information technology at JCC. But now, cheaper equipment, a partnership with Smithfield and the state tax funding have opened the door for the new medium.

Most of the equipment for the channel will be housed on JCC’s Smithfield campus, and the college will draw on its current staff for the channel’s day-to-day operation. Revenue from the college’s wireless broadband project will also help fund the channel.

Whisnant said television would be a unique way to speak to Johnston County. “We have a number of unique programs,” she said. “It would be a good way to share information about them with the community.” For example, the school could put up digital bulletin boards on the channel or broadcast lectures and information sessions, she said.

Merritt said the town might broadcast council meetings, public information and safety concerns.

School officials at Fayetteville Technical Community College say they are able to broadcast a much wider variety of material on their channel compared to most commercial channels.

One program, “Coffee and English,” teaches English as a second language.

“There’s a lot of different kind of programming that I think the community has really appreciated,” said Bob Irvin, vice president for learning technologies at Fayetteville. He said the channel works with county high schools, Fort Bragg, Fayetteville State University and other county players to create a breadth of programs.

The JCC project now has enough equipment to get up and running; the planners hope it will be certified and functional by July. Programming and production will come later, once additional equipment arrives.

Two field-production kits will allow the town and college to produce content from almost any location. As Whisnant put it, the channel is meant to be more than “a bulletin board with canned music.” In the future, programming from other sources around the county might make it on to the channel, though Whisnant said it would be far from public access.

“The object is to provide community information,” she said.

All Time Warner Cable subscribers in Johnston County will get the channel. Whisnant and Merritt said there are no immediate plans for an over-the-air broadcast.