TV viewers in almost 100 areas warned of channels going black this week

TELLY viewers in 100 areas across the UK face blackouts this week – and a common fix won’t work to restore the problem.

Digital television platform Freeview is embarking on planned engineering works on their transmitters.

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The nationwide endeavour will impact viewers from Dover to the tips of the Scottish highlands.

In a number of areas there will be pixelation or flickering on some or all channels.

However, in some regions viewers could be left with a black screen when trying to watch their favourite shows.

When faced with signal disruption, a common fix is to rescan your TV or set-top box to update the channel list.

That is frequently done following a change in broadcast frequencies or when you’ve moved house.

However, Freeview have told customers that rescanning their box or retuning their TV while the engineering work is ongoing will not solve the image issues.

Freeview said: “Sometimes engineering work is required on transmitters so that they can keep reliably broadcasting your favourite free-to-air programmes.

“If you are affected by engineering work, please don’t try and retune your TV – reception will be restored as soon as the engineering work is completed.” 

For viewers who are worried about missing out on their favourite shows, Freeview have complied a handy guide on how to watch them online.

Freeview customers can watch their favourite shows online via the TV Guide on the Freeview website. 

And if you’re not sure what transmitter your household get your signal from, you can put your postcode into the Detailed Transmitter Information tool to check.

Below is a full list of all the regions set to be hit by the engineering updates: