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Help Receiving BBC TV and Radio

Digital TV – Satellite

You can receive satellite TV free to air from Freesat or Freesat from Sky, or by subscription from Sky.

Typical reception problems include picture break-up or freezing, missing channels, the wrong regional channel, or no reception at all. The cause may lie in your set-top box, viewing card or satellite dish, or the weather.

Picture break-up (pixelation) or freezing, clicking sounds, sound dropping out

  • There may be a glitch in the software, so try resetting your set-top box.
  • if that does not work, please contact your satellite TV supplier or retailer for help.

Missing channels or interactive services

  • There may be a glitch in the software, so try resetting your set-top box.
  • There may be a problem with your equipment or your viewing card. You should contact your satellite TV supplier or retailer for help.
  • Your satellite dish or the LNB (the device mounted on the arm attached to the dish) may have gone out of alignment. You should contact your satellite TV supplier or an installation engineer about this.
  • Heavy rain can cause a temporary loss of all satellite services. This is because the storm blocks either the signals being sent up to the satellite (uplink) or, more often, the signals coming down from the satellite to your dish (downlink). Services should return to normal once the storm has passed.

Free-to-air satellite TV

All of the BBC's digital TV and radio services are available free, without a subscription. You don't need a viewing card to receive them. Many other channels are also available free, although some are encrypted and require a viewing card.

You can get free-to-air satellite TV with Freesat or Freesat from Sky. You can also get it with other satellite equipment that you install yourself and tune to the correct frequencies.

BBC regions on satellite TV

The same satellite signals cover the whole country, so you can receive all the BBC's national and regional TV and radio channels wherever you are.

If you have a Sky set-top box and active viewing card, you will normally see your local BBC One region on channel 101. If your card is damaged or out of date, or you don't have a card, channel 101 will show BBC One London region programmes and channel 102 will show BBC Two England. For queries about Sky viewing cards, please contact Sky.

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