Freeview channels offline in the UK following 'high air pressure' – are you affected?

Officials from Freeview – the UK's digital terrestrial television platform – have blamed the British weather for a series of network outages that has left many users unable to watch their favourite shows.

"High air pressure is currently affecting TV signals in Wales & England. Normal services will return once the weather changes," the Freeview Advice account confirmed on Twitter (1 November).

According to DownDetector, a website that tracks the availability of online services, the company first started having issues at about 6pm Tuesday (31 October).

However, based on the still-mounting user complaints on social media, issues are ongoing.

Twitter posts from impacted users indicate problems intensified at around 9pm on Tuesday, which unfortunately for some viewers clashed with the end of the British Bake Off finale.

"Now is NOT THE TIME FOR FREEVIEW TO GO DOWN #gbbo," one post fumed.

Another frustrated commenter vented: "Freeview has been down since last night around 9pm. Nothing showing on the internet apart from lots of unhappy customers. Please fix."

DownDetector said reports have mostly originated from London, Northampton, Dorchester, Chelmsford, Birmingham, Colchester, Bromsgrove, Poplar, High Wycombe, and Holborn.

Under a real-time outage tracking map, embedded below, multiple complaints were being posted – many still popping up on Wednesday (1 November).

Some of the most recent have rubbished the 'bad weather' excuse from Freeview.

"If digital can be messed up by high pressure then why did they not leave the analogue signal on, never had an issue with weather in the old days," one person noted.

"I just retuned TV and bit by bit some channels are returning but they keep going off and on and the pictures are badly scrambled," another comment read.

A Freeview spokesperson elaborated: "TV and radio signals can be affected by atmospheric conditions, including high air pressure (which brings fine weather), heavy rain or snow.

"We're aware that high air pressure is currently affecting TV and radio signals for some viewers. We're unable to prevent or remedy this, normal services will return once the weather changes."