Televisions across Shropshire were blacked out today as a major airborne operation was launched on top of The Wrekin to pave the way for the digital switch-over across the region.

The Midlands is scheduled to go fully digital in 2011 and the delicate operation to upgrade the transmitter on the landmark hill marked a major step on the road to the transformation. Helicopters were used to transport equipment.

Thousands of viewers with analogue sets were still without signals this afternoon and were not expected to be back online until the early hours of tomorrow after the transmitter was switched off in the early hours.

Some homes got signals back at 5am when a temporary replacement was set up but an estimated 13,000 were left with blank screens, notably in the Wenlock Edge area, Market Drayton and Whitchurch.

A helicopter was drafted in to carry away the old transmitter during the blackout this morning and it then made a return journey with its digital replacement.

Engineers then bolted it on to a heavy base and then reconnected it.

The transmitter serves Shropshire, south Cheshire, parts of Staffordshire and the West Midlands. Digital UK said the analogue transmitter on The Wrekin had to be switched off  to allow the digital upgrade.

The analogue channels affected by the interruption of signal were BBC1, BBC2, ITV1, Channel 4 and Five.

Satellite television services were unaffected, but analogue and DAB radio was also subject to some disruption.

Peter Monteith, regional manager for Digital UK, said: “This is essential work which will pave the way for making digital TV more widely available.

“The Midlands goes digital in 2011 and that will be done transmitter by transmitter, there being nine across the region.”

Mr Monteith said the temporary, low-power antenna put in place early today was unlikely to reach 30,000 households in the Wrekin transmitter’s area, in reality only 13,000 would have been affected because 17,000 households had already switched to digital TV, such as Freeview.

By Simon Hardy