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. Monday evening is a roads-and-recovery night: two episodes of Police Interceptors open primetime from 6pm, Motorway Cops: Catching Britain’s Speeders takes 8pm, a third Police Interceptors hour follows at 9pm, then a new episode of Highway Thru Hell arrives at 10pm before The X-Files closes things out from 11pm.

5Action Schedule: Monday 17 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete 5Action schedule for Monday 17 August 2026, on Freeview 33.

Overnight

Breakfast

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

Late night

What’s on 5Action today

Monday’s overnight run belongs to World’s Deadliest Weather: Caught on Camera, three episodes back to back from 12:55am: wildfire evacuations on Rhodes alongside a Colorado hailstorm, a Philippines typhoon paired with a near-miss avalanche in Kyrgyzstan, then Hurricane Otis battering Acapulco while UK floodwater closes out the set. A short Entertainment News on 5 bulletin at 3:50am hands over to two hours of teleshopping, and Cruise TV with LoveitBookit then holds both the 7am and 8am slots, the second a new edition.

Trucking Hell mixes a highlights compilation with a fresh case from 9am, a bin lorry stuck down a Lincolnshire lane, before a Police Interceptors highlights edition revisits a drug-dealer pursuit at 10:20am. Gunsmoke’s thirteenth series opens at 11:20am with two feuding cattle barons squaring up in Dodge. Lee Van Cleef’s bounty-hunter western The Big Gundown runs twice either side of an Entertainment News update, and Glenn Ford’s gold-rush western Lust for Gold does the same into mid-afternoon.

Highway Thru Hell takes the 4pm slot, a semi recovered from a cliff after avalanche conditions close a mountain pass, before Motorway Cops: Catching Britain’s Speeders picks up a drink-driving stop near Congleton and a three-vehicle crash in Cheshire at 5pm, setting up the evening’s run of cop shows.

5Action tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the 5Action primetime line-up for tonight, Monday 17 August 2026.

Police Interceptors — 5Action, 6pm

Two episodes run back to back to open the evening. The first sends dog handler Duncan to a midnight stand-off while a colleague is left clearing a crashed Range Rover; the 7pm follow-up catches a driver trying to bluff his way through a roadworks stop, a teenager wanted over a robbery, and someone who can’t manage a breathalyser.

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

The Cheshire patrol series returns at 8pm. A furious drink-driving suspect is pulled over near Congleton, and officers elsewhere in the county are called to a three-vehicle crash.

Police Interceptors — 5Action, 9pm

A third hour of Police Interceptors at 9pm opens with three teenagers accused of threatening a shopkeeper with a gun, prompting a full firearms response.

Highway Thru Hell — 5Action, 10pm

A new episode of Highway Thru Hell is the strongest thing 5Action shows tonight. Jamie decides the crew in Hope can’t keep running short-handed and brings in a new driver, only for the recruit to end up needing rescuing himself after wrecking Bruce’s well-known blue truck. It’s a familiar shape for this Canadian heavy-recovery series: a genuine mechanical crisis rather than a staged one, and the tension comes from watching real crews get real trucks off a mountain pass in real trouble, not from any narration laid over the top. Series three has kept up that standard, and this is as good a place as any to see why the show has become a fixture of 5Action’s evening schedule.

The X-Files — 5Action, 11pm

The night closes on a classic-era case. Mulder and Scully investigate a teenage chess prodigy whose genetics point to something stranger than a gift for the game.

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?

A roads-and-recovery night. Two Police Interceptors episodes open primetime from 6pm, Motorway Cops: Catching Britain’s Speeders takes 8pm, and a third Police Interceptors hour follows at 9pm. A new episode of Highway Thru Hell airs at 10pm, and The X-Files closes out the night from 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

Highway Thru Hell at 10pm is tonight’s pick: a new episode of the strongest documentary series 5Action carries, built on real mechanical jeopardy rather than staged drama. It earns its evening slot in a way the channel’s daytime filler rarely does.

The three hours either side of it, split between Police Interceptors and Motorway Cops: Catching Britain’s Speeders, are comfortable, familiar cop-show television that won’t surprise anyone who has watched 5Action before. The X-Files closes out the night from 11pm with a classic-era case, solid late-night viewing for anyone still up.

Related: Channel 5 TV Guide | Freeview Channel Guide | Films on TV This Week