Sky News Briefly Falls Off Air on Freeview

Sky News dropped off air on Freeview across the United Kingdom at around 11am on Tuesday morning.  Viewers in areas including the Midlands, Northern Ireland and the Home Counties were greeted with a blank screen accompanied by a high-pitched test tone in the background.  The picture cut out midway through a report from Downing Street with Sky's correspondent, Niall Patterson.

A Sky News spokesperson told News on News; "there was a short break in transmission of Sky News on Freeview, following maintenance work, with full service restored after 10 minutes."

Normal viewing returned shortly before 11:15.

Further viewing problems involving Sky's channels broadcast on Freeview were reported later in teh afternoon, however this time it is thought that a temporary transmitter fault in the north of the UK was at fault, and not connecting to this morning's outage.