Freeview retunes for 2020 announced

Further Freeview retune dates have been confirmed for parts of England, Wales, Isle of Man and Northern Ireland in 2020.

The additional retunes are part of the final stages of a scheme to clear some of the airwaves which are being auctioned off next year for future 5G mobile services, with the latest set of dates having just been confirmed by Freeview.

Affected viewers will need to retune Freeview or YouView TVs and set-top-boxes if they lose channels on the relevant regional retune date.

In Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, most of the region's main TV transmitters will undergo frequency changes on the 5th February 2020, some relays will see changes a week later on the 12th February. In East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, an additional retune will take place on the 4th March 2020 due to frequency co-ordination with the East Midlands.

In the East Midlands TV region, viewers will need to retune on the 4th March 2020. For many viewers, this will mean changes to the frequencies for all the main TV channels, including BBC One East Midlands and ITV Central East.

For viewers in the North West of England - historically known as the ITV Granada region - changes will occur in two stages - 19th February and 22nd April 2020 when broadcasts from the Winter Hill transmitter and many relays change.

Across in North East Wales, the Moel-Y-Parc transmitter will change on the 22nd April 2020, in co-ordination with events in North West England.

In Northern Ireland, a frequency change takes place at the Divis transmitter, above Belfast on the 4th March 2020, co-ordinated with changes taking place over the border in the Republic of Ireland on the same day, when services across the island of Ireland will be cleared for future 5G mobile services.

Viewers in the western part of the Anglia region, in parts of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire and eastern areas of Buckinghamshire will be affected by frequency changes on 12th February 2020.

On the Isle of Man, transmitters will be switched to new frequencies on 29th April 2020, once other frequency changes have been completed around the edges of the Irish Sea.

Some viewers in the Lake District will also be affected during April, when a number of relays will be switched.

Viewers are being advised to look out for on-screen messages to remind them of the impending changes. Satellite, cable and internet TV viewers are not affected.

On each regional retune day, Freeview channels are subject to being off-air overnight as engineering work takes place at the transmitters. By breakfast time, most viewers will be able to retune to restore channels. Relays will be up and running by the afternoon.

For a detailed view of the retune days, please visit the RXTV log regional retune days page.




  • Did you know? When retuning older TVs, a 'first time installation' or 'factory reset' may be required to wipe all lost channels on old frequencies. The 'add channels' option is not to be used to restore existing channels. Freeview has published videos explaining how to retune many common brands of devices on its website.
  • Further assistance for viewers affected by the changes is available at:   https://www.freeview.co.uk/help/tv-changes

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