More Freeview retunes taking place

Viewers in the East Midlands, East Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, the Belfast area and parts of SW Scotland will need to retune Freeview again.

Technical changes to the Freeview service as a result of the Government-backed scheme to clear frequencies for future 5G services take place on Wednesday 4th March 2020.

Viewers in the affected areas will lose access to Freeview services between midnight and 6am. Viewers who only receive a limited number of Freeview channels via a local relay will need to wait until the afternoon for services to resume.

After this time, anyone missing channels is advised to retune to restore them.

The process is mostly straightforward on newer Freeview devices. On some older Freeview receivers, a first time installation or factory reset may be required to return all channels on their correct numbers.

Viewers who cannot restore the main channels after retuning and rely solely on Freeview for their TV viewing can call the Freeview Advice Line for assistance on 0808 100 0288.

Online help and retuning videos are available at https://www.freeview.co.uk/help/retune-videos

Technical information for installers

East Midlands

Waltham and Nottingham transmitters, plus Derbyshire relays and Eastwood (Notts) relay.

All viewers who receive BBC One East Midlands on channel 1.

Overnight downtimes for viewers. Relay viewers will face daytime downtimes.

Waltham (retune after 6am): PSB1, PSB2, PSB3 and COM6, COM7 and LOCAL moving to UHF 32, 34, 35 and 31, 55, 41.

Nottingham (retune after 6am): PSB3, COM4, COM5 and Local moving to UHF 21, 33, 36 and 44.

Full changes can be found here.

East Yorkshire, Lincolnshire

Belmont transmitter. Overnight downtime, retune after 6am. Frequency change for COM6 - including channels such as PBS America, Talking Pictures, 4Music, Yesterday and Al Jazeera. Moves from UHF 60 to 26.

Northern Ireland - Belfast area

Divis transmitter. Overnight downtime, retune after 6am. Frequency change for COM 7 and 8 - including BBC News HD, BBC Four HD, Quest HD, FreeSports and Forces TV. Moves from UHF 51 and 60 to 55 and 56. Non HD viewers unaffected.

SW Scotland - Blackwaterfoot and Campbeltown only

Blackwaterfoot and Campbeltown relays only. Daytime downtime, retune after 6pm. Blackwaterfoot HD channels only (UHF 50 to 40), non HD users do not need to retune. Campbeltown ITV, C4, C5 SD and HD channels (UHF 57 and 53 to 42 and 45).