How will clearance affect viewers and channel providers?

Most Freeview viewers will simply need to retune their TV equipment when this change takes place in their area. However, Ofcom has stated that between 140,000 and 270,000 homes may also need to either replace or realign their aerial to continue receiving all available channels.

Ofcom states that as part of 700MHz clearance:

14-20m homes will need to retune their TV equipment.

100,000-160,000 homes may need to replace their aerial.

40,000-110,000 may need to have their aerial realigned.

A small number of households may need to change TV platform.

Most Freeview viewers are familiar with retuning and do so from time to time to update their channel line-up, where TV equipment does not do this automatically. In some cases, more than one retune may be required where clearance takes place in multiple stages.