We reminded you to retune your Freeview box yesterday but it turns out the process was not as simple or as seamless as it should have been for some people. Freeview’s phonelines are in meltdown with complaints from cheesed-off consumers.
The great Freeview retune was to allow more homes to get Five and push the system a little closer to Freeview HD roll out.
However, the change seems to have led to over 460,000 households losing access to ITV3 and ITV4 instead.
Now, you could argue that losing ITV3 and ITV4 is hardly the worst thing that could happen to you but it turns out many people are furious.
A Freeview spokesperson told the BBC that viewers with problems should “try again”. Hmmm…very helpful.
Don’t waste time trying to call Freeview for at least a couple of days. The organisation says it’s been receiving around 200 calls per minute and has stopped accepting calls due to “high call volumes”. You don’t say.
Did the great Freeview retune mean you lost ITV3 and ITV4? Let us know what problems you’ve had (if any) and whether you’re that fussed about getting Five in the first place.
Out now | £free | Freeview (via BBC)
I live in the west country tv area and lost favourite channels ITV 3 and 4 when retuning. I have only gained the pointless ITV2 plus 1 and not the promised quest channel presumably because I am on a relay transmitter. When I went on the Freeview website after retuning it did say that relay customers would lose the channels indicated above, but how many customers would bother looking at that website after switchover. The point I am trying to make is that NO mention was made at the time leading up to switchover that some channels would be lost when retuning at a later date. So basically this amounts to a con by Freeview. What can we do about it? How can we set about putting pressure on freeview to re think?
We have lost ITV4 and ITV3 – not fair. We live in inner London.
Anyone know how we can get them back – we are happy to lose all the new channels
This is just another symbol of Brown’s Broken Britain – meddling and spoling anything that makes ordinary follk happy.
I retuned successfully on 30th September but last night (Sunday 11th October) have lost itv1, 2 and 4 Channel 4 and Five. For some reason still have itv3. Any suggestions anyone. Have spoken to Freeview, they can find no reason. Have looked on the website which states the channels I should have and should get all of them. Nightmare, we use Five quite a lot.
Update: for those interested http://www.tvretune.co.uk should tell you which channels you should receive.
We had ITV 3 and 4 breaking up frequently after the digital re tune on our ,almost brand new Digital TV in the living room, but reception was fine on our old Analogue TV and old Goodmans’s box upstairs. After a lot of messing about we discovered that the problem lay in the rather thin co-axial connection cable supplied with the new TV, and the old TV also had poor reception when connected through it,
I made up a new cable using higher quality coaxial cable and both TVs now have perfect reception. So if you are having trouble with ITV3 and 4 breaking uop it may be worth investing in a decent quality co-axial connecting cable – much cheaper than a new aerial.
I thought that we’d had a problem with Channel 5 since the retune as the picture keeps pixelating, but I’ve just learnt that Channel 5 is operating at reduced resolution for most areas until the middle of October, when it should be back to normal. So I’ll be able to watch Flashforward on a clear screen!
On another note, I had done what most people did and simply retuned the box (as that’s what the instructions on the screen said) but since doing a factory reset everything is fine (except the C5 thing). My Panasonic box in the kitchen was always problematic with random channel numbers in weird places but it’s great now. The other 2 boxes (one of which is a very old ‘On Digital’ box) have noticed little difference since the retune so I guess we’ve been lucky.
I have not been able to get itv3 on 10,since I retuned.I am 83yrs.I miss Poirot,Wire in the Blood
etc.etc.Please fix it. Thankyou.
mines ok apart from bbc3 stores until you turn tv off overnite then it disappears how come?
The whole thing is far more dark than you realise – the postcode of your house determines what Freeview channels you will be left with after this farcical so-called ‘retune’. You don’t believe me? Only half a mile separates us from our friends in SE Essex. They retune – everything comes up as before with all channels OK. We retune and suddenly we have nothing apart from the basic BBC and minimum ITV. Go to the Freeview website and check coverage by typing in my postcode – result? “You will get nothing but basic channels until 2011″. Go to the Freeview website and type in my friends’ postcode – result? “You’ll get all the channels you used to get, no problem – Dave, ITV 3, 4, BBC 3, 4,etc., etc. Here’s the kicker – we both receive our signal from identically orientated aerials. So…how does the Freeview website know that half a mile east, an aerial that has quite efficiently been picking up strong Freeview for the last two years, should suddenly cease to function. The website didn’t ask me what kind of aerial I had. There should be no noticable deteriation in signal strength over half a mile in the flattest county in Britain.
OK, I admit I’ve got form in this – over the past week, I’ve been picking the best brains on the internet – well, the What HiFi Forum anyway!
I’ll paste a link in after this – otherwise, just Google ‘Freeview Robbery’ and you’ll be in. Thanks for your time.
http://community.whathifi.com/forums/317906/ShowThread.aspx
Manchester – retune number 1 for BBC2. Lost BB1 & 2 completely now.
Manchester – same as above comment, retuned box and lost BBC 1 and 2 and other channels like Sky Three etc… Awesome!
lost itv4 on retune .can only get it if i turn off and unplug sky box.when i turn sky back on i lose it again.will not work at all on my dvd player which is brand new.am really annoyed as this is only channel can watch btcc on.have sky but if it rains have no picture which is why have freeview so dont miss anything.anyone know if they are going to fix it or do we just have to celebrate channel 5 which i dont actually watch
I live in the Granada area and despite re-tuning several times I’ve lost BBC1 and BBC2 on 2 seperate freeview set top boxes. Like everything else this crappy government organises it turns to sh1t – PATHETIC!
i have lost bbcs1&2 on at least 2 freeview boxes after the granada switchover on 4 november, despite retuning them all. help anyone?
It re-tuned itself yesterday (Friday 13th November) and now it’s like this ! We only have 4 channels that are clear, the others are scratchy and have no sound. We cannot get onto the guide and the picture quality has gone down. We have tried Auto-Tuning the television but it has made no difference. I never thought that particular day was unlucky !
Stupid freeview !
i just recently purchased a phillips abilight and i retuned as i was told, and when i did, i lost the channels , 3 , 4 , 5 , itv2 , more 4 , both music channels and a few more they are all set from channel 300 up and none of them show on my freeview guide i have tryed everything on the tv to get it back to normal and its still the same im getting fed up and do often miss programs . i pay my tv licence every year and think this is a joke can some one please help me i dont no what to do thanks
just done retune today (2nd december) had 117 channels now i cant get more than 39!!! what a joke- tried it a few times no luck. to make it worse i live in manchester and cant even get local tv my itv is now bloody welsh!!!
Ive lost itv,ch4,ch5.Ive retuned and reset but still nothing.
i forgot to mention that i have an intergrated freeview samsung tv.