After a project spanning five years, the final changes to ITV’s satellite signal are taking place.
- Viewers who have lost ITV1 HD on Sky and Freesat should reboot their receiver.
- Follows final set of frequency changes at the end of a five year project to make all ITV1 regions available in HD.
Some Sky and Freesat viewers in London, the West Midlands and South East may need to reboot their satellite receiver if they lose access to ITV1 HD on channel 103.
ITV is completing a frequency change on satellite bringing to an end a project that rolled out all ITV1 regions in HD via satellite.
ITV1’s Central West, London and Meridian East regions are moving across to new frequencies, following on from similar frequency changes affecting all other ITV1 HD regions last year.
Sky and Freesat receivers will receive an over the air update, which should mean most viewers won’t need to do anything.
However, last year’s ITV satellite frequency changes did result in a small number of receivers not automatically updating, resulting in a blank screen on ITV1 channel 103 when the old frequency was turned off.
That’s expected to happen again to a small number of Sky and Freesat receivers again this month.
How to restore missing channels
If you lose access to ITV1 HD on channel 103 on Sky and Freesat, but other channels are still there, a receiver reboot may help.
Sky has detailed guides on its website on how to reboot your Sky+HD or Sky Q box.
Freesat meanwhile has a guide on restarting a Freesat box that is missing channels, for users with its latest receiver range. For older receivers, consult your instruction manual.
On Freesat boxes, it may also be possible to restore channels by completing a rescan. The ‘Freesat Channels’ or ‘rescan’ option is found in the installation menu on Freesat receivers. Instructions for newer receivers can be found on the Freesat website.
Viewers in the Republic of Ireland, where ITV isn’t on the main Sky channel list will need to manually tune in the affected ITV1 HD regions again using the new tuning parameters. The regions have been broadcasting on both old and new frequencies for the past month in preparation for the switch.
What’s behind the changes?
It was a project that started back in 2020, when ITV began in earnest to migrate Sky and Freesat viewers to HD.
The broadcaster began to add additional regions in HD and make the HD version of ITV1 the standard on channel 103, replacing the old standard definition (SD) copy of the channel. The launch of all ITV HD regions took until late 2023 to complete.
But ITV did not have sufficient transponder space to fit all the extra HD regions. So it partnered with Sky with three HD regions moving to Sky’s satellite transponder capacity.
In 2024, ITV HD channels were moved to three new wideband transponders. Each transponder had space to carry one extra HD channel compared to the previous arrangment. As a result, the three ITV1 HD regions using Sky capacity (Central West, London and Meridian East) can now move across. On completion, all of ITV’s HD channels will be broadcast together on satellite.
This will mostly go completely unnoticed by viewers, except where satellite receivers fail to automatically update.
By: Marc Thornham | Image: ITV