5Action TV Guide: Listings, Schedule & What’s On 5Action Tonight

5Action is Channel 5’s cop-show and action channel, and it has had more names than most channels manage in a decade: Spike at launch in 2015, 5Spike from 2017, merged with the UK’s Paramount Network in 2020, and 5Action since January 2022. Friday 7 August 2026 runs the channel’s regular teatime cop-show block as usual, then hands the 10pm half-hours to two new episodes of Cops before an X-Files rerun closes the night at 11pm.

5Action Schedule: Friday 7 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete 5Action schedule for Friday 7 August 2026, on Freeview 33.

What’s on 5Action today

Friday opens with Britain’s Most Dangerous Prisoners at midnight, profiling Joanne Dennehy, who killed three men over ten days and is one of only three women in the UK currently serving a whole life order (series 1, episode 3). Outback Truckers follows at 1am, with Steve Graham racing the rain to join forces on a mega road train while, on a separate cross-country marathon, Yogi’s truck hits the wall (series 2, episode 13). Trucking Heavy takes the next two hours: Sam, known on the crew as the Hiab princess, delivers three huge shipping containers to a remote Manchester farm while Mark moves a 57-foot canal boat to a Birmingham marina at 2am, then a 36-tonne crusher goes from Anglesey to Liverpool and a holiday home is shifted from Hull to the Isle of Arran at 3am (series 3, episodes 6 and 7). Entertainment News on 5 closes the small hours at 3:50am.

Teleshopping fills the gap from 4am to 7am, when Cruise TV with LoveitBookit takes over; the 8am edition is new. Trucking Hell picks through jack-knifed lorries, crashed HGVs and roadside breakdowns at 9am (series 5, episode 2), then Police Interceptors runs a best-of special from the Essex unit’s first season at 10am (series 1, episode 7). Gunsmoke follows at 11am, with an attorney general leaning on Matt’s friendship with an outlaw for political gain (series 12, episode 24).

Track of the Cat, the 1954 psychological drama starring Robert Mitchum and Diana Lynn as a family unravelling in a remote cabin while the eldest son tries to dominate the rest, runs from 12:05pm, breaks for the 1:05pm news and resumes at 1:10pm through to 2:10pm. The Outcast, a 1954 western with John Derek and Joan Evans in which Jet Cosgrave comes home to reclaim the family ranch from a corrupt uncle after his father’s death, follows the same pattern either side of the 3:15pm bulletin, running until 4pm.

The Motorway takes 4pm, a wheel torn loose in a high-speed crash bouncing across the carriageway and causing three more accidents while a car running out of fuel snarls up the Birmingham rush hour (series 4, episode 9), and Motorway Cops: Catching Britain’s Speeders follows at 5pm as PC Niaz tries to run down a speeding SUV on the M62, only to be taken aback by the driver’s reason for the dangerous speed (series 2, episode 10), setting up the evening’s cop-show run.

5Action tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the 5Action primetime line-up for tonight, Friday 7 August 2026.

Police Interceptors — 5Action, 6pm, 7pm and 9pm

Three episodes, and not all from the same run. The 6pm and 7pm pair are from series fourteen: Spike uses a drug wipe on a teenage biker, then Chris’s tracker dog Ronny follows a scent. The 9pm episode jumps to series twenty and opens with a pursuit touching almost 150mph after a high-performance Mercedes makes a run for it.

Motorway Cops: Catching Britain’s Speeders — 5Action, 5pm and 8pm

Two from different series. The 5pm episode has storms causing chaos and PC Mike answering an urgent call for backup on nights. At 8pm PC Andy Doran is sent to a breakdown because Highways are unhappy with the driver, and finds out why when he gets there.

Cops — 5Action, 10pm and 10:30pm

Two new episodes, not one split. Stop sticks end a Jeep pursuit in South Carolina, and a suspect is found hiding in a closet.

The X-Files — 5Action, 11pm

An archive episode to close, as the channel usually does.

What kind of shows are on 5Action

Cop shows and roads policing documentaries

This is the channel, really. Police Interceptors, Traffic Cops and Motorway Cops: Catching Britain’s Speeders between them account for most of the grid, and they are built to an identical template: dashcam and body-cam footage, a narrator over the top, and the officer explaining afterwards what made them look twice. John Thomson narrates one, Jamie Theakston another, Nicky Campbell the third, and that voice is often the quickest way to work out which show you have actually landed on.

Action films and westerns

Older genre cinema fills the afternoons, mostly westerns. Gunsmoke, The Walking Hills and Horizons West come round often, usually split either side of a news bulletin. A full western occasionally makes it into an evening slot, but not often.

Heavy recovery and trucking documentaries

Highway Thru Hell, Trucking Hell and Outback Truckers cover the same job on three continents: British roadsides, the Australian outback, the Canadian mountain passes. Highway Thru Hell is the best of them and 5Action seems to know it, since it tends to get a decent evening slot rather than being buried overnight.

How to watch 5Action

Channel numbers

Here’s where to find 5Action across the main UK television platforms:

5Action is free on all of the above platforms, with no subscription required. Virgin Media and Freesat numbers can vary slightly by region and box, so your on-screen guide is the definitive source if these don’t match.

Streaming online

5Action streams live and free through 5, Channel 5’s combined broadcast and streaming platform, at channel5.com and via the 5 app on smart TVs, iOS, Android and Amazon Fire TV. The service was known as My5 until Channel 5 merged its linear channels and catch-up library into the single “5” brand in March 2025. A free account is all you need, and recent episodes of shows like Police Interceptors and Highway Thru Hell are generally available to catch up on afterwards.

5Action sister channels

5Action sits under Channel 5 Broadcasting Limited, itself part of Paramount Skydance Corporation, alongside three siblings. 5USA runs American crime dramas and imported US series, so it is far more scripted than anything here. 5Star does reality and true crime, personality-led where 5Action is all dashcam and recovery trucks. Channel 5 is the flagship and takes the group’s biggest dramas, documentaries and 5 News; the other three pick up the specialisms it does not have room for.

Frequently asked questions

What channel is 5Action on?

Freeview 33, Sky 150 (Sky Q) or 165 (Sky Glass and Sky Stream), Virgin Media 150 in HD or 187 in SD, and Freesat 132.

What’s on 5Action tonight?

The channel’s usual cop-show rotation. Police Interceptors takes 6pm, 7pm and 9pm, Motorway Cops: Catching Britain’s Speeders fills the 8pm hour, a new episode of Timber Titans arrives at 10pm, and The X-Files closes the night at 11pm. Full times are in the schedule table above.

Is 5Action free to watch?

Yes, completely free to air with no subscription, though it carries advertising and teleshopping strands throughout the schedule, particularly during the day.

Can I watch 5Action online for free?

Yes. It streams live at channel5.com and through the 5 app, the platform formerly known as My5. A free account is all that’s required.

Verdict

Friday’s pick is the pair of new Cops episodes at 10pm and 10:30pm, the only genuinely new material in a night of reruns. Watching a logging crew race to place a bridge during the worst wildfire season on record makes for a change of pace from the dashcam footage that dominates the rest of the evening, and it’s the one hour tonight that isn’t a repeat of something else.

Everything around it is the standard block: three Police Interceptors episodes spread across the evening (two from the newer series 14 run, one older from series 20), Motorway Cops: Catching Britain’s Speeders at 8pm chasing cloned plates on the M56, and an X-Files rerun at 11pm to close out the night.

Related: Channel 5 TV Guide | Freeview Channel Guide