Viewers who were affected by the Bilsdale Freeview transmitter outage have just over a week left to request support if they can’t restore their TV service.
In the past month, services have been restored after nearly two years of disruption caused by a fire at the original Bilsdale mast. The new mast, just over 300 metres in height, is designed to provide the same level of TV coverage as the original mast, serving parts of North Yorkshire, Teesside and County Durham.
While some viewers were able to continue watching Freeview via a temporary mast at Bilsdale on the same frequencies, a number had to rely on smaller relay masts to fill in coverage not-spots. As a result, viewers need to retune back to the main Bilsdale transmitter to continue viewing.
Mast operator Arqiva has urged that anyone who still experiences disruption, or a loss of services, should trying retuning to call the helpline 0800 121 4828 if any problem persists before the 7th July when the helpline closes. Arqiva said the helpline would close because any ongoing Freeview reception problems will not be related to the new mast.
Adrian Twyning, Chief of Operations at Arqiva, said:
“Only a very small percentage of all viewers served by the Bilsdale mast have needed to contact our helpline for support since we switched on the new mast. We have quickly been able to send engineers out to homes where a visit was deemed necessary.
The number of calls and visits required have steadily declined since switch on, highlighting that the vast majority of viewers have now had their TV services restored. With this in mind, and with TV services being transmitted as before, we feel it is time to close the helpline as any new issues experienced from now will be unrelated to the Bilsdale mast disruption.
As normality resumes, remaining relays in the region have now resumed receiving a direct feed from Bilsdale. A temporary satellite back-up to ensure relays could continue relaying channels including ITV1, Channel 4 and Channel 5 has now ceased.
Marc Thornham