Freeview - aargh!

I'm incandescent!  I know there have been adverts on TV for sometime now telling us that if we get our TV via Freeview we would have to retune on the 7th and 21st September - but what I didn't realise was that if you didn't, all your channels would disappear.  Now the television in my bedroom is set on Freeview and programmed to come on at 6.00 a.m.  Except of course that yesterday it didn't - or rather it did but simply showed a message saying "channel not available" or something like that.  Result - I overslept and was out of sync for the whole day as a result.  So firstly, why did they have to do this on a weekday?  I'm sure I can't be the only person who was caught out in this way.  Why couldn't they have programmed it for a Saturday night into Sunday morning for example?  And secondly, was it not possible to have some audio message transmitted for the benefit of those who use their TV as an alarm clock?  Is this another case of people simply not thinking things through?  And of course, I must now remember that the same thing is likely to happen on the morning of the 22nd!