Wrong Sky region advice
Discussion
Some advice please chaps, we've had Sky for a couple of years now and one thing thats always bugged me but I've never found a resolution for is Sky's insistence that we receive the wrong ITV regional programs. Living in Hampshire (GU35) we should get Meridian South based approx 35 miles away in Southampton, but for some unknown reason Sky give us Meridian South East which is based over 100 miles away in Maidstone in Kent and pretty much just covers Kent and East Sussex. The closest the Meridian Tonight South East news broadcasts get to us is maybe the Gatwick/Crawley area which is a good 35-40 miles east of us as the crow flies, so not even close to being geographically relevant! Our BBC region on Sky is correctly set to Southampton BBC South and our Freeview signal is Meridian South from the Midhurst transmitter which is about 10 miles south east of us, so we're well inside the Southampton region as far as terrestrial TV is concerned. Here's a map of Southern England showing the Meridian SE tranmitters and coverage, we're barely even on that map being about 20 miles south west of Guildford, but despite all this and despite calling Sky technical support several times over the past couple of years to get something done about it, theyve never sorted it. They usually say they're sending a command to the box to reset it to the correct region, but nothing happens so it's obvious that for some unknown reason they have us down on their database to receive a Meridian SE signal and just won't / can't change it.
I believe postcodes are provided to Sky by the local broadcasters that determine which region you fall into but surely there must be a department somewhere either within Sky or ITV/Meridian that's responsible for this data, so does anyone know the best way to tackle this? I've manually aded the correct channel on the Sky box but it's far from ideal, you can't use it to replace the existing 103 channel, it doesn't have a number so has to be accessed from the Sky menus and it has no EPG listings so simply doesn't get used, I'd rather switch to Freeview than do that consantly.
Cheers
I believe postcodes are provided to Sky by the local broadcasters that determine which region you fall into but surely there must be a department somewhere either within Sky or ITV/Meridian that's responsible for this data, so does anyone know the best way to tackle this? I've manually aded the correct channel on the Sky box but it's far from ideal, you can't use it to replace the existing 103 channel, it doesn't have a number so has to be accessed from the Sky menus and it has no EPG listings so simply doesn't get used, I'd rather switch to Freeview than do that consantly.
Cheers
The regional variation that Sky provide is set by the broadcasters themselves therefore unless Sky permit you to 'move house' they can't change the channels you get. They do have a database they can check to make sure you're receiving the correct variation as far as ITV tell them. If this is correct then there's not much you can do other than add 'your' variation via the add channels but it won't have a channel number, will need to be accessed via the services menu and you won't be able to set recordings on it either.
Cheers, yeh I know it's set by the regional broadcasters, im sure they have us on the system as SE, what I need to find out is why because it has to be mistake, we'd have to drive the best part of 50 miles east with a Freeview TV to pick up a Meridian SE terrestrial signal, so it's simply ridiculous that we'd come under that region unless its a mistake in the database.
a4cabrio said:
I have the same problem, I live in north Yorkshire, on channel 103 I get Yorkshire (calender) ITV but on channel 178 ITV 1 HD i get ITV Granada region. Have thought about contacting Sky, but don't really see what they can do about it.
Sky only broadcast 3 ITV HD channels London,Granada and one listed as itv, for every regional variation there is NOT automatically an HD equivalent, you will also find that BBC hd does not do local news etc either. This is why sky did not move these SD channels when they changed 106 to sky1 hd and 520 to discovery hd etc. itv channel 4 and five have remained in place as advertising is sold on a regional basis.
bristolracer said:
Sky only broadcast 3 ITV HD channels London,Granada and one listed as itv, for every regional variation there is NOT automatically an HD equivalent, you will also find that BBC hd does not do local news etc either. This is why sky did not move these SD channels when they changed 106 to sky1 hd and 520 to discovery hd etc.
itv channel 4 and five have remained in place as advertising is sold on a regional basis.
Thanks for taking the time to explain, Never realised ITV only had 3 HD channelsitv channel 4 and five have remained in place as advertising is sold on a regional basis.
We had the same problem. We got London local news/programming, but live just outside Oxford - obviously we'd prefer local Oxford news about fluffy bunnies being born rather than the latest stabbings in London.
Once simple call to Sky and they changed our box's region.
Ours might be a different case though - because we got London BBC and ITV?
Once simple call to Sky and they changed our box's region.
Ours might be a different case though - because we got London BBC and ITV?
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