Arqiva says Bilsdale Mast will start transmitting signals to homes

The mast, which is the 12th tallest in the UK, will begin transmitting on Monday 22 May. Credit: Arqiva

The new Bilsdale mast is scheduled to begin transmitting TV signals on Monday - more than a year and a half after being destroyed by fire.

The previous mast was severely damaged by a fire in August 2021, leaving about a million people in Teesside, North Yorkshire and County Durham without TV coverage.

A temporary mast was erected, with work starting to rebuild the structure starting last September, taking eight months to complete the structure, which is the 12th highest in the UK.

Arqiva said most people should automatically receive the new signals from the 300m tall structure, though some may need to retune their televisions.

The Bilsdale mast was destroyed by a fire, which broke out in August 2021. Credit: Adam Gill

Adrian Twyning, chief of operations at Arqiva, praised the team, who he said had been "working tirelessly" to restore services to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible.

He added: "The unique nature of the structure, and the area it is in, presented some exceptional challenges which we have had to address.

"As we’ve said before, you wouldn’t choose to build the UK’s 12th tallest structure at the top of a hill on the North York Moors during winter but we committed to doing it as fast as possible and we have.

“While we expect the vast majority of people to require no intervention in order to benefit from the new mast’s signals, if you experience loss of service from Monday we ask that you try a retune and if this doesn’t help, contact the helpline on 0800 121 4828.

“Most importantly, those who have received a mailer from us in the past two weeks should be ready to call the helpline if a retune does not restore your TV services.”

The priority for Project Restore has been to restore the core TV services from a permanent, full size mast and work will continue to bring the full range of additional services, including radio, back in service in the coming weeks and months.

A small number of households may temporarily lose HD services for a few weeks until additional antenna are installed. Viewers should note that these HD channels will be available to watch in standard definition.

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