Help Receiving BBC TV and Radio
Many problems can be cured by simply resetting your digital box, whether it's a terrestrial (Freeview), satellite, cable or broadband box or a digital TV recorder. This also applies to digital TV sets (which have Freeview built in).
Typical problems include:
For missing channels, first try retuning your digital box or TV. For other problems you may need to do a reboot (restart) .
Channels change from time to time - new ones are added, some are removed and others move to different channel numbers. On Freeview they may move to different multiplexes. If you have a satellite, cable or broadband set-top box, the channel list will usually be updated automatically.
If you have a digital terrestrial box (Freeview, Top Up TV or BT Vision) or digital TV, you will need to retune it yourself. It's a good idea to do this regularly to make sure you are always up to date. You will need to retune at least twice when your region goes through digital switchover.
Retuning should also restore any missing channels or features that you think you should have.
The retuning process runs a scan and finds all the available channels. Your box may have an Add New Channels option that you can use, but this may not pick up other changes such as channels being moved to a different multiplex or removed altogether.
For full retuning instructions for your particular model of digital box, check your manual or go to (External) TV Re-tune .
A digital box has a micro-processor and software, like a computer, and it can suffer from occasional glitches. To reboot (restart) the software:
You may need to clear your box or TV's 'memory' and retune again to find all the available channels.
For more advice, please see the page for your platform: terrestrial (Freeview) , satellite , cable and broadband .
If you are confident about setting up your digital terrestrial box or TV, you can manually retune it to the correct channels. See your instruction manual for details, or contact the manufacturer. To find the channels and transmitter for your area, use the Digital UK postcode checker and, on the results page, click on Trade view (alongside the Postcode checker results heading).
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