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’s primetime runs three separate Police Interceptors cases: two back-to-back from series 16 at 6pm and 7pm, then a third case from series 20 at 9pm, with Motorway Cops: Catching Britain’s Speeders breaking up the run at 8pm. A Cops double takes 10pm and 10:30pm, and The X-Files supplies the night’s only scripted drama from 11pm.

5Action Schedule: Friday 21 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete 5Action schedule for Friday 21 August 2026, on Freeview 33.

Overnight

Breakfast

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

Late night

What’s on 5Action today

Friday’s overnight hours open with World’s Deadliest Weather: Caught on Camera at midnight, series six, revisiting the flooding and storm surge Hurricane Ian brought to Florida alongside a wildfire that sent families fleeing across Portugal. Outback Truckers follows at 1am, Mark’s oversized load bringing an entire city to a standstill while Yogi races the clock trying to shift a load of antiques. Trucking Heavy takes the next two hours: a 23-tonne canal cruiser gets hauled 180 miles to Gloucester and a 137-tonne cylinder makes its way through Barrow at 2am, then a set of retired Glasgow Subway carriages — the “Clockwork Orange” — squeeze through tight city streets and a 68-tonne transformer heads for Rochdale at 3am. A short Entertainment News on 5 bulletin at 3:50am hands over to three hours of teleshopping, and Cruise TV with LoveitBookit fills both the 7am and 8am breakfast slots, the second one new.

Winter Road Rescue splits the 9am hour, following Highland snowplough crews holding the line against blizzards and flooding while patrols further south deal with ice on the roads. Police Interceptors gets an earlier outing at 9:50am, series two, chasing down a stolen 4×4 and catching a pair of car thieves out early. Gunsmoke’s thirteenth series arrives at 10:50am, with Matt Dillon shielding a wounded mountain man from a rancher’s gang out for revenge. The Charlton Heston western Will Penny then runs either side of the 12:55pm news update, a drifting cowhand crossing paths with a gang of thieves and a woman he can’t quite shake, before Bend of the River (1952, James Stewart and Rock Hudson) does the same around the 3:10pm bulletin, its homesteaders squaring up to a corrupt town boss after a gold strike.

Highway Thru Hell closes out the afternoon at 4pm, Jamie Davis’s crew swapping season stories back at the Barn, and Motorway Cops: Catching Britain’s Speeders returns at 5pm with a convoy of patrol cars and dogs chasing down a car that has no business being on the road, plus a row over a hockey stick and a breathalyser test that doesn’t go the driver’s way. That sets up the run of Police Interceptors that opens tonight’s primetime at 6pm.

5Action tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the 5Action primetime line-up for tonight, Friday 21 August 2026. It’s a heavy night for Police Interceptors in particular: three separate cases across the evening, starting on series 16 and switching to series 20 for the last one.

Police Interceptors — 5Action, 6pm

Police Interceptors (series 16, episode 7) opens the evening with officers searching a housing estate for suspects tied to a shooting, a helicopter and a dog unit brought in to help box them in.

Police Interceptors — 5Action, 7pm

The second case of the night, still series 16, follows a driver who bails from a decommissioned ambulance mid-chase, veers onto the wrong carriageway, clips a level crossing and finally dumps the vehicle on live rails.

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

Nicky Campbell’s motorway series breaks up the Police Interceptors run at 8pm (series 4, episode 6). A Chevrolet gets pulled over for a drugs search, and further along the shift officers turn their attention to a driver who shouldn’t be insured, let alone possibly over the limit.

Police Interceptors — 5Action, 9pm

A third Police Interceptors case (series 20, episode 15) closes the run, with officers Jim Carrington and Lewis Marshall finally catching up with a Citroën Picasso that has slipped away from them three times already this week.

Cops — 5Action, 10pm and 10:30pm

Cops runs back to back from 10pm (series 37, episodes 28 and 29). The first half turns on a woman’s account of a Tesla crash unravelling once dashcam footage surfaces; the second follows a man who says he only broke into a lorry cab to get out of the cold.

The X-Files — 5Action, 11pm

The X-Files (series 6, episode 4) supplies the one break from the roads-and-pursuits theme. Mulder and Scully head to Area 51, and a bizarre mix-up leaves Mulder in the wrong body for the rest of the hour — the opening half of a two-parter.

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?

Police Interceptors opens with two episodes at 6pm and 7pm from series 16, Motorway Cops: Catching Britain’s Speeders takes 8pm, and a third Police Interceptors case follows at 9pm, this one from series 20. Cops runs a double from 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

Friday sticks close to the channel’s house formula, just with an extra helping of it: Police Interceptors takes three separate slots across the evening (6pm, 7pm and 9pm), starting on series 16 before switching to series 20 for the last case, with Motorway Cops: Catching Britain’s Speeders breaking up the run at 8pm. Cops then closes in with a double from 10pm, swapping British pursuit cars for American dashcams and courtroom disputes. None of it is essential, but it does what 5Action always does, competently and without surprises.

The X-Files at 11pm remains the one break from the roads-and-pursuits template. Series six opens its Dreamland two-parter here, sending Mulder and Scully to Area 51 for a body-swap plot that is a genuine change of pace from the rest of the night. Worth staying up for if the rest of the evening hasn’t held your attention.

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