Bilsdale transmitter fire: TV and radio disruption could last up to 14 days
Mast operator Arqiva says work to put up temporary transmitters will take between seven and 14 days.
www.bbc.co.uk
I wonder how many of us here are affected by last Tuesday's serious fire at the Bilsdale transmitter and how surprised people are by the apparent lack of very much news coverage of the event and its aftermath. The "reception" page of the BBC's web-site has not been updated since Thursday. Freeview's web-site is simply telling us that many people in unspecified areas are likely to have to wait until 28 August to get any television reception via their aerials.Households left without TV reception after a transmitter fire could wait up to 14 days for services to be restored.
The blaze at the Bilsdale mast impacted Freeview, DAB, and FM radio signals for more than a million people across North Yorkshire, Teesside and County Durham.
The organisation of broadcasting seems to parallel that of passenger railway services: the final customer (passenger/viewer) has a financial relationship with the provider of a service (TOC/BBC) but not with the provider of the infrastructure through whose facilities the service is provided (Network Rail/Arqiva (owner of Bilsdale)). With the railway, it's the TOC that is recognised as having the prime responsibility for looking after the passenger in times of perturbation, and whilst there are regular horror stories most TOCs do seem to try their best and most seem to have got much better with things like the processing of refunds over recent years. In this Bilsdale broadcasting incident the BBC's service to its customers seems to have been pretty poor, with a real dearth of information, especially over when service might be resumed, and certainly no offer of refunds of a portion of the TV-tax for what might well be almost up to some three weeks without service.
Where I am in Central York some houses have their aerials set towards Bilsdale, some towards Emley Moor, depending on the one from which the installer could get the better signal, and obviously no-one wants to get their aerial altered for a worse signal when at some stage there will be a repair (and who wants Leeds/Bradford news when you can have Newcastle/Cumbria?). And there's no alternative cable service in this area (and no signs of any fibre computer cables!).
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