Loss of TV Reception
10/08/2021
Sadly, the TV reception outage is completely out of hands but we continue to provide guests with the latest information when it becomes available to us.
A 300-metre exclusion zone is now in place around the Bilsdale transmitter in North Yorkshire.
The mast near Helmsley which provides TV signal for North Yorkshire and the North East has caught fire on Tuesday.
Emergency services have said they are awaiting confirmation from structural engineers that the Bilsdale transmission tower is structurally secure.
North Yorkshire Police said, "We will then return for a closer examination and to resume the process of investigating the cause."
In a statement, telecommunications operator Arqiva said: "Our teams continue to work with the emergency services to ensure the safety of the site.
"We have started the process to gradually restore services using a combination of temporary structures and existing infrastructure elsewhere in the region, and will be moving through this process as quickly and safely as possible. We will continue to share updates as we have them”.
TV and radio services remain off air from the site and we are waiting to assess the extent of the damage caused. We are following our incident response procedures and have enacted our disaster recovery response. Our teams are currently mobilising temporary equipment to site however we are unable to provide specific timelines for restoration of any services at this point.
Arqiva, Telecommunications operator
The transmitter sends a signal to approximately 570,000 houses across the region - only viewers who receive their television via Freeview are affected.
A spokesperson for the company added that neither the fire service, nor Arqiva engineers have been able to access the site yet to assess the extent of damage caused by the fire.
Radio services affected include BBC Radios 1-4, Radio Tees & BBC DAB, SDL, North Yorkshire DAB, Bauer Teesside, Digital 1, TFM, Capital, Heart & Classic FM.
Arqiva, which owns the transmitter, has apologised for the inconvenience.
Emergency services confirmed that crews had been sent to the site at around 2pm today (10 August) after smoke was seen issuing from it.
This detail has been taken from ITV Tyne Tees News - we will update you with more detail as and when it is received.