Why a retune is needed on Freeview in the North West and Yorkshire

There's changes to the Freeview service across the North West, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire on Wednesday 23rd October 2019.

Frequency changes will result in some viewers needing to retune their Freeview TV or box. In the run up to the change, during the early hours of Wednesday morning, some channels will be unavailable. It will be safe to retune from breakfast time.

A number of viewers have contacted the RXTV Log to confirm pop-up messages advising of the changes are now being broadcast in the affected areas. YouView box owners will also need to retune.

Frequencies are being changed to create space for future lower frequency 5G networks, following a Government-backed decision made by Ofcom in 2014.

What's changing?
Not all services are affected in this instance, so many viewers will still be able to access most of Freeview's channels.

Across the North West (ITV Granada) TV region, only the local channels serving Manchester, Liverpool and Preston/Blackpool alongside Sony Channel, Sony Movies Christmas and Tiny POP are affected. All other Freeview channels remain unchanged - but there will further changes during the first half of 2020 - the exact dates are to be confirmed.

For viewers tuned into relays serving North Oldham, Bollington, Langley, Moss Bank, Norden, Stockport, a full retune will be needed to restore all basic Freeview channels.

In the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire TV region, local TV is also affected, with new frequencies for Leeds TV, Sheffield Live, That's TV York and That's TV Humber, Sony Channel, Sony Movies Christmas and Tiny POP.

There will also be changes on the same day to channels including BBC Four HD/CBeebies HD, Quest HD and FreeSports, for viewers with Freeview HD, YouView or Freeview Play TVs or boxes.

Viewers in Idle tuned into the local relay will need to retune if they lose channels including Talking Pictures, 4Music or Yesterday.

Further changes will take place in parts of Yorkshire in November, in conjunction with a frequency change taking place in the adjacent North East TV region.

Multiple retune dates are sometimes required in order to ensure that changes are coordinated with different TV regions to ensure there isn't any interference caused by transmitters on the same frequencies.

North West England will need to wait until around February/March for a further retune, which in turn will be scheduled to co-ordinate with the final retunes taking place in the Yorkshire and Ireland.

Viewers can get support on retuning from www.freeview.co.uk/tvchanges .