At Oxford Aerials we are obviously very interested in this question!

Roof mounted TV aerials have been a feature of the British skyline since the 1950’s, it’s how most of us have received all of our favourite TV channels for all of our lives. However, as Netflix and BBC i-player have proved, it’s now possible to receive perfect quality HD channels from the internet. So, the question must arise, why bother having an aerial on your house anymore? Some facts suggest that TV is gradually moving away from off-air broadcasts.

Ofcom are gradually reducing the amount of the frequency band that is used for TV broadcasts. Some of the frequency space has been given over to the mobile phone industry for 4G and 5G mobile data.

Other Countries

Some countries have already moved away from aerials altogether. In Switzerland, all the TV transmitters were turned off in 2019. Research has shown that less than 2% of households use terrestrial TV there anyway. This may be because Switzerland being mountainous has lots of poor reception spots for terrestrial TV. Many more people have always used Satellite TV instead so terrestrial TV is less important.

Long Term

Despite all of this, we can find no plans to get rid of TV transmitters and aerials in the UK at all. Ofcom are planning for their next up and coming frequency plan. Aerials are being newly designed for the UK market for this new frequency range and Freeview are talking enthusiastically about their continued move to HD from standard definition.

The very long-term future is surely for TV to be delivered on a fibre optic internet feed straight in to your house. This would leave the air-waves free for the mobile phone industry. For now it seems as though we are still very much in the era of terrestrial TV aerials.

What we offer

Oxford Aerials are now busy helping our customers with all methods of receiving their TV pictures. We are still fitting lots of aerials, installing and servicing dishes for Sky TV and for BBC Freesat. We’re also now doing lots of internet work, connecting customers TV’s directly to the router for perfect and speedy connectivity.