Latest update from Arqiva (11 August 2021 at 22:00):
There is continued disruption to services in North East England due to a fire at Bilsdale transmitter. We are working to restore services as quickly and safely as possible.
Engineers are working to gradually restore services as quickly and safely as possible. Some viewers in Hartlepool, Redcar and the eastern edges of Middlesbrough may start to see some services restored this evening. You may need to retune your TV to restore services. To find out more about retuning watch our handy retune videos.
The task to reinstate all the services that were available from a 1,000ft mast is a complex one and we are working hard to get as many services back up as quickly as we can.
As of 1900hrs on 11/08 we have been able to provide some TV and BBC Radio Tees services for hundreds of thousands of people in the area.
We are assessing all options open to us but the process is a gradual one. We apologise for the inconvenience, but ask that you bear with us as our teams work hard to deliver solutions for as many people as possible as quickly and safely as we can.
When is it back to normal
I am furious the telly signal came on for two days then it’s gone again I’m a oap and rely on the telly esp at night it’s either fixed or it’s not when is this service going to be returned as I’m not paying for something I’m not getting
as you are not able to supply me with a service i will want recompence from you it costs me £3 a day for my tv service so therefor i will be charching you plus inconvenience
mr b mills to whom do i send the bill
As a pensioner who has been made to pay for a service which was free, am I now entitled to a refund.
Your tv licence is 45 p per day so where are you paying that price , and to who ?
well said
Does that mean we will be getting some refund on TV licence, as we do not have any other means of watching the TV.
How petty
At about 43p per day, do you really think it’s worth it?
Yes I agree you charge us plenty for the service and we who have suffered due to the fire should be compensated .
I am also still off with the service and no means of watching anything at the moment,
All you people asking for refunds.. you do realise this page has nothing to do with either the BBC or Arquiva right?
And to the Mr B Mills claiming to pay £3 a day for TV, that’s £90 a month which is the cost of a high end sky package, (or a low end package together with NowTV, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Britbox AND Disney+).
As the services disrupted are primarily freeview services, and most of your subscriptions are satellite or streaming based, you have no claim for any kind of refund.
Some common sense at last!
I appreciate the effort of the team to restore the tv signal. We don’t realize what a hard job it will be keeping up the good work.
A question where is the back up Transmitter?
You need to give people daily up date d
I was thinking along the same lines you would think in this day & age they would have a back up system in place to flick across to if this sort of occurrence occurred
If you have zero technical knowledge you may well think that! Best not to ‘broadcast’ it though!
Can’t believe no back up in force and no one saying when tv will be up and running
How do you envisage a 1000ft steel guyed tower and antennae can be ‘backed up’?
Build two of everything just in case?🤪 ….. and even then UHF antennas are highly directional …….. but don’t let science spoil your entitlement.
Is this affecting sunderland area just asking for my gf
Glad there were no fatalities or injuries equipment can be replaced….. Compensation culture can take a back seat
no refunds – especially not to mr b mills.
£3 a day? £1095 a year for your TV License?
I think not Mr B Mills…
Love to no when the service Will be bk on.
Mind ya just think bk in the day’s when there was no TV or phone s or anything.
Life is for living .we have great area’s around the north east and Yorkshire let’s get out and about and enjoy life to the full.
In Whitby. Can only get Yorkshire. Not Teeside therefore no BBC, ITV Channel4, Channel 5 etc. Starts at channel 7
Iv got nothing in Durham either, and been doing the retune everyday just in case,
My mother is 94 and lives in Harrogate the tv is her company as she lives alone any news on when the signal can hope to be restored will be welcome.
I posted this on FB the day it went down. I have an auntie 87 and she doesn’t have SKY. I feel for the elderly and vulnerable
Exactly Jean Dixon you’re correct but no way will anyone that pays TV licence get any money back for what has happened. That’s exactly what I was thinking too that we either should get some refund or not pay it for a little while as it isn’t our fault that it has happened
They took away our free tv license and now our tv!! ? What next?
Our right to breathe and talk.
Probably means that I’m going to have to miss ‘Gogglebox’ tomorrow night.
Always a bonus
Wen Will darlington be bk on
Well there are a lot of money grabbing people out there who think they should be compensate for things that are outside the control of the transmission company
As someone who as worked with Radio and TV transmitters and receivers I know that water is the last thing you want in the equipment and you have check every part of the system before you put any power on or you just get a big flash of light and another fire or the poor engener gets electrocuted
It is not a simple job of just reconnecting every thing
Would love to know why or what the engineer was doing b4 the fire started and as for the mast its been there since 1969 thats 52 years its been up a great achievement but dont you think all the money that bbc netflix and prime are raking in isnt it about time it got a new transmitter only asking
I can not wait for metior to take out the satellites that Sky use and see how many people start to complain and want refunds because those satellites would be down for years
That is if Sky bother to continue to use satellites to broadcast there programmes or just switch to streaming there programs
At least with ground based systems you can get repair crew’s to the site unlike satellite systems
As anyone noticed that the TV companies are switching their Freeview TV signals to 4K meaning that a lot of older TVs cannot receive them channels so you will have to by a new TV or set top box
It looks like we are going to pay more to watch TV one way or the other
I remember my dad buying a colour TV in the 70s and it worked fine till they switched to digital nowadays you are lucky if a TV last 5 to 10 years before it obsolete
It’s the 4th day, I’ve realised I can do without the telly, that will save me £160 a year,
Tv is an addiction and many going thru withdrawal. Many don’t realise you can survive without the ‘drug’ which has been self conditioned for years.
Try the radio and an activity as a start to rehabilitation.
They say there was a time before tv believe it or not where family’s would gather around the radio… before that multi-generations lived together and gathered around something called ‘conversations’.
Find alternatives if can..it’s healthier and good luck in this day and age of the herding consumer directions on the green path to profits.
Yes we know you’re working hard. You not alone. Just spare us a few seconds for an update please. Thousands of older people rely on TV as their only link with the outside world and have no online services. Give them a glimmer of hope!!
Bloody hell it’s only telly and mostly rubbish at that.Calm down and find something interesting to do 🙂.
That’s the Turnbull talking in you. 😃😃
Where are the contingency plans? In this day and age there should be something in place
Use your imagination……read a book, invite a neighbour you never really speak to that might also live alone- around for drinks or dinner, play some games, meditate, write someone a letter, clear out the loft/ shed/ sort things for the charity shop.
Best of all, Practice gratitude. Whats going on in Afghanistan right now, those civilians and the lives they are going to have….? maybe a good place to start this very rewarding habit.
We had a power cut last week when I was sat with my 80 year old mother, she missed her dose of Eastenders , we had a great time. Best half hour ever.
Time to build a new mast so we can get ITV Yorkshire in Harrogate to hear local news. Sick of hearing news from Teeside and Tyneside.
nowt at all in darlington company should do 6 hourly updates keen enough to take fees dont inform us at all
The pressure for a fix will be coming from commercial advertising as no coverage will be costing. No incentive to pay my overdue licence now. No telly no payee.
When all said and done, it’s the television not an iron lung.
Hopefully when the new transmitter is in place we will all receive much better reception as the technology of today is far superior to the old mast erected in 1969
No information being given is frustrating, I live in Darlington and we have nothing, yes I can go out and about but not everyone is able to, nor foes everyone have access to catch up yv or Internet.
I’ve spent two days erecting a fence with my son at his new house, never missed the telly once. People are out there somewhere working night and day to sort this out stop your whinging and whining ang go do something more interesting and energetic.
Just seen an update from Arqiva on our community website. Stage 2 is to erect a temporary mast at Bilsdale which will take up to 14 days to complete the work!
Hi, i still cant get any bbc channels and only have 13 other channels which keep going off, please can you just keep people updated. Thanks
Just when the football is starting dam, .going to miss match of the day😥
Why, O Why, O why do we have to put up with this. I mean, really, is that all they can say? Why, O why do we have to put up with all of this? Really is that there best? Come On people. Why, O why should we have to put up with this level of service? This is exactly the kind of thing that makes me sick to the core with hate and bile and a large amount of injustice sprinkled with disappointment and inconsolable seething anger washed down with a cold cup of….you know what. (I am not referring to the pavement stuff). The password is “repudiation”. If I could get my hands on the ones responsible for “firing” up his “turmoil” I would make them retune my Granada TV with mighty vehemence and an onslaught of acute brutality to teach them not to mess with Dickinsons Real Deal.
There’s been a lot of comments on this regarding there’s more to life than T V
Unfortunately there are a large number of house bound who rely on there
All down to planning if one mast goes down switch to another??
More masts who decides there things same people who shut railways
Now to many cars on road?? BRING BACK HANGING OPEN RAILWAYS
Please remember every one are not healthy very easy to be critical
The transmitter owners will be being paid by the broadcasters, but i do understand that compensation is not going to happen, as they will all say its not their fault.
My mother in law mainly depends on her TV & Radio for entertainment and company as she does not get out much.
It does seem a shame that the overlap of transmission areas is a thing of the past, as its not now cost effective for their business.
I am only asking they they put out an update once a day with a progress report of how the temporary masts erection progress is going. I am sure this would be appreciated by everyone affected.
Me too . My 93 yr old neighbour who is profoundly deaf and relies on subtitles, has no TV nor company she gets from it. In this day and age an absolute disgrace