Updated - changes to Freeview channel numbers this week on September 19th 2012

Published on 15th September 2012 at 18:38 by Brian Butterworth on UK Free TV

As an update to the original plan (see  Freeview channel numbers change on September 19th 2012) - the changes to Freeview this week will now be less extensive than planned, as two channels have appealed the changes.

The main changes are shown in this diagram below. You will need to do a "first time installation" to ensure the channel numbers are correct. See  My Freeview box has no EPG ... or the channel line up is wrong if you don't know what to do. Another option is the list of retune instruction leaflets and manuals on the  Freeview Retune - list of manuals page.



The changes are now:

• Dave and Yesterday swap over to 12 and 19
• Really and Gold (subscription) swap over to be 17 and 20
• The Food Network moves to 48 (from 49)
• The Jewellery channel moves to 49 (from 60)
• Local TV services are reserved 8 (England and Northern Ireland) and 45 (Wales and Scotland)
• RTE1, RTE2 and TG4 are reserved 51, 52 and 53 - these start on a special  "mini multiplex" for Northern Ireland on Wednesday 24th October 2012.
• Argos TV starts on 55
• Text services move to 200-224: 200 BBC Red Button; 201 Teletext Holidays; 202 Rabbit; 203 Gay Rabbit; 204 1-2-1 Dating; 205 Mail Travel; 206 Sky Text.
• MHEG services move to 225-299: 225 VISION; 226 CCTV; 227 Sports Tonight; 228 Connect 1; 229 Connect 2; 230 Connect 3; 231 Racing TV; 232 The Space.
• HD channels move to 101-120 The "normal" order of channels is restored to HD: 101 BBC One HD; 102 BBC HD; 103 ITV1 HD or STV HD or UTV HD; 104 Channel 4 HD; 105 S4C Cirlun. - (Not 100% sure this is confirmed)

First comments Earlier comments  ◊ 

Your comments are always welcome. Please use the form below to add your thoughts or questions to this page. We will get back to you as soon as we can.

P

Phill
Monday 5 November 2012 10:57PM

I have the same problem and I live in CHELTENHAM GLOUCESTERSHIRE.
I first thought the retune was the same as the rest.
Was I wrong.
I have lost half of my channels and the picture has differant coloured pixels all over it.
As for asking why you have to retune .
If enough people think the T.V. has packed up due too a loss of channels after the retune they go and buy another,good for sales or what.
In the future if it still works ,I will leave it alone.
I have tried all the above ideas and still have a cr*p picture

4 posts

S

Sara
Wednesday 7 November 2012 1:19PM Northampton

Getting intermittent pixation. Some days fine, others unwatchable.
I have retuned several times.
Have Freeview box and digital roof mounted aerial.
Any ideas?

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K

KMJ,Derby
Wednesday 7 November 2012 2:20PM

Sara: When you retune, does this restore stable reception, or does the problem persist? Which channels/muxes are giving trouble? It is worth checking that the channels being stored are on the correct frequency for the transmitter that the aerial is pointing to. The Digital UK postcode checker shows that reception is possible from more than one transmitter, in particular you could have channels stored from Sutton Coldfield with the aerial pointing to Sandy Heath, or for that matter S/H if the aerial is set on S/C.

1,477 posts

J

jb38
Wednesday 7 November 2012 11:20PM

Sara: In addition to the advice given by KMJ,Derby it would also be prudent to check with neighbours to find out if any of them are experiencing similar problems, as I notice that all of the aerials in your locality are facing directly into a mini forest of trees, Freeview signals and trees being a bad combination and especially if the latter gets rained on.

4,694 posts

S

Sara
Thursday 8 November 2012 7:41AM

KMJ Derby and jb38, thank you both for the suggestions will give them a go.
Tuesday hopeless picture on all channels and despite retuning no better. Last night perfect picture on all channels.
Thanks again.

2 posts

J

john
Friday 9 November 2012 4:00PM

Too John L & jb38

thankyou both for your help i have done all that you both advised and now have all my stations back Signal=38%
Quality=100%
it reports i am on the northeast transmitter it used too say Teesside
the tv is a CELCUS 32882HD LCD no hd chn's but i knew that when i purchased it

the tuner card in my pc also has picked up around 120 stations also the main four in hd which i never had before so maybe a poss signal fault somewhere all seems well so i am keeping my head down :0 thankyou both again for the help advice and your patience

5 posts

G

grant bennett
Sunday 11 November 2012 10:48PM

Hello. I have noticed a problem with freeview recently. I have seen it on my old sony trinitron CRT, my new Samsung sidelit LED and on my parents LCD in Brighton (i live in London). What I think i'm seeing is a cliping of colour in dark shadow areas and black levels. This gives a desaturated look to areas of the picture. At first I thought the problem was my old CRT on its last legs but as I say Ive seen it on different TVs. Has anyone else noticed this. Am I imagining this! I'll be very unhappy if this is a change in broadcasting as it has caused me to throw out my CRT tv which has a nicer picture than LED

1 post

J

John
Monday 12 November 2012 2:42PM

I have recently bought a Freeview box on ebay and i live in Cork in the south of Ireland will I be able to get the freeview channels once i conect the box to the dish on my roof?

1 post

B

Bill
Tuesday 13 November 2012 12:44PM

John: Try connecting it to the Aerial on your roof, not the dish.

63 posts

M

michael green
Friday 30 November 2012 12:20PM

despite a double retune,on both sets,panasonic and sony,i cannot receive itv 4 on either,and Yesterday on very poorly on the [newer]sony

13 posts

Dave Lindsay
Friday 30 November 2012 12:52PM

michael green: If you're receiving from Rowridge then turn your aerial to vertical polarisation as the COM channels (those that carry ITV3, Pick TV, Yesterday, Dave, ITV4 etc) aren't as strong horizontally.

There should be no need for a different aerial (unless the current one is broken). Don't get a wideband aerial (unless it's a log periodic) - "high-gain" wideband aerials aren't "high-gain" at the UHF channels used by Rowridge.

4,062 posts

Dave Lindsay
Friday 30 November 2012 12:57PM

michael green: Rowridge transmits horizontally and vertically on all channels and has been doing so since April.

4,062 posts

L

Lynda
Saturday 1 December 2012 6:43PM

I live in Snettisham, Norfolk, since retuning both my Freeview TV's, the picture is awful since the November retune in this area, the greens i.e grass on programes almost illuminus now. Have had the ariel man out, he added a signal booster to the ariel, almost all channels signal 10, quality 10. I noticed my son's TV picture bad also in Cambs, since he also retuned. What is happening to the quality of our digital transmitters? we pay enough for our TV licences, gets so I can't be bothered to watch such poor quality pictures, I own a top quality Panasonic TV, it's nothing to do with either my sets.

2 posts

Briantist
Saturday 1 December 2012 7:52PM

Lynda: I would have a look at Freeview signals: too much of a good thing is bad for you | ukfree.tv - 10 years of independent, free digital TV advice

37,269 posts

L

Lynda
Sunday 2 December 2012 4:02PM King's Lynn

Lynda: The signal was below 30% before, we had alot of blocking, hence why a signal booster was added. The Humax signal strength is 75%, the normal TV's are almost 10% which gives us a much better piccy on the Dave channel etc., but it hasn't made any difference to the awful brightness of the greens, as I said before it wasn't like this until the retune beginning of November. I have taken ariel out & rescanned on both TV's to clear first, could it be due to the fact that we are close to a large amount of trees in our area? Are there any more suggestions, would a satellite dish make any difference?

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C

Cathy
Saturday 9 March 2013 12:21PM

I recently retuned my TV and have now lost the Food Network. Does anyone know how to get it back?

1 post

K

Ken Collyer
Tuesday 12 March 2013 11:29AM

Cathy. To give any real help, people need to know, preferably, which transmitter you receive your television signal from, or if you don't know that, where you live.

13 posts

R

Robert Smith
Sunday 17 March 2013 9:54AM

We have lost the Yesterday channel signal and also some other ITV channels - screen message says Weak Signal - have auto re-tuned and have now lost them all together. We are in Bath and get our signal from Mendip.

1 post

A

a.blumenfeld
Saturday 23 March 2013 3:22PM Weymouth

cannot receive several channels since moving to weymouth from hants. in spite of bringing my aerial with me. local aerial company says other people can`t .i wonder if this is true?

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Dave Lindsay
Saturday 23 March 2013 3:38PM

a.blumenfeld: You asked the same question yesterday and an answer was given:

My ITV/C4 Freeview channels have disappeared - what can I do? Is it my SCART cable? | ukfree.tv - 10 years of independent, free digital TV advice

The Commercial licence holders don't have an obligation to provide a "Public Service", unlike the Public Service Broadcasters. For this reason, we now have a two-tier terrestrial television transmitter network:

Londonderry (Northern Ireland) digital TV transmitter | ukfree.tv - 10 years of independent, free digital TV advice

Your only chance, if any, is to receive the Commercial channels from Rowridge although, as jb38 said on the other page, reception is predicted as variable.

4,062 posts

K

Ken Collyer
Monday 25 March 2013 9:26AM

Dave Lindsay.
You say to A. Blumenfeld "you asked the same question yesterday and an answer was given" but it's not on this page. It seems to me there are too many "pages" on which to ask questions and therefore you can't always find the answer. Also can you tell me why this, and indeed other earlier update emails are headed "Updated - changes to Freeview channel numbers this week on September 19th 2012", when we are in March 2013.

13 posts

Dave Lindsay
Monday 25 March 2013 12:14PM

Ken Collyer: In response to your comment "but it's not on this page": which is why the text you quoted is followed by a colon and a hyperlink to the page in question.

The changes on this page are those which took place on the date mentioned. I haven't seen the other "emails" you refer to, so can't possibly comment.

4,062 posts

M

Mrs. J. Slack
Sunday 14 April 2013 12:12PM

Live in Llandudno and when the pop up on my Toshiba TV said to retune - did not do it - as on the TV in the bedroom did retune and all the channels are on different numbers which we have been unable to get to their original ones and we now get programmes from Wales. So my lounge tv now has no BBC programmes - though we can get them through Freeview. Have tried re-tuning the TV in the bedroom and it just mixes the channels up again. Wish I had left it alone!

1 post