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Home»Terrestrial»Surprise Freeview channel change in Wales
Terrestrial

Surprise Freeview channel change in Wales

An unannounced frequency change means Freeview viewers in Wales may need to retune to watch E4.
6 January 2023

Entertainment channel E4 is now available to more viewers in Wales after the change, which took place on Thursday 5th January.

Viewers from Blaenau Ffestiniog to Merthyr Tydfil, who can only get a limited range of Freeview channels can now access E4 on Freeview channel 13.

Until now, Freeview viewers across a wide chunk of Wales could receive timeshift E4+1, but not the main E4 channel, in a bizarre anomaly.

That’s because Freeview capacity in Wales was used to insert S4C instead of E4, in an arrangement dating back to 2009. This ensured that S4C could achieve high levels of coverage after the digital switchover.

That left E4 only available on Freeview to viewers within range of a main transmitter, which can transmit a wider range of channels. But due to the terrain of Wales, many areas are reliant on local relay transmitters, which only carry some channels.

Now though, it’s become technically possible to add an additional stream to viewers in Wales so both E4 and S4C can fit in. As a result, viewers should retune to keep the Freeview channel list up-to-date.


▶ Action required for Freeview users in Wales

If you only receive a limited number of Freeview channels
  • Retune to access E4 on channel 13.
If you could previously receive E4 on Freeview
  • Retune to retain access to E4.
  • E4’s old limited-coverage broadcast slot in Wales will close shortly. After a retune, you should find the old copy of E4 on channel 793. [This does not apply if you receive your Freeview signal from England.]
  • Some auto-tuning TVs may have added E4 in the 800s on your channel list. A full retune will correct this.

For guidance on retuning, Freeview has uploaded a number of support guides and videos at www.freeview.co.uk/retune. When doing a full retune, some TVs warn viewers that the old channel list will be deleted.


The channel change coincided with a wider update to Freeview on Thursday 5th January. This saw the Smithsonian Channel closing, the arrival of That’s 60s and a channel change for Dave Ja Vu.

The change to E4 in Wales was unannounced by Freeview.

Cable and satellite viewers are unaffected.


by Iain Hatton

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RXTV info: Covering the reception and distribution of UK terrestrial TV (Freeview), cable, satellite and connected TV services for users and installers.

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Saorview: Irish DTT  | How to manually tune your Sky box | Sky Glass channel list |  UHF channels and centre frequencies

 

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