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

Published: 26 August 2026

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. Thursday 27 August 2026 is another night with no films anywhere in primetime, but the shape is different from the usual back-to-back blocks: Motorway Cops: Catching Britain’s Speeders and Police Interceptors interleave rather than run in a single strand each. Motorway Cops holds 5pm and 8pm, Police Interceptors takes 6pm, 7pm and 9pm, then a new episode of the logging series Timber Titans moves in at 10pm and a classic X-Files repeat closes the night at 11pm.

5Action Schedule: Thursday 27 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete 5Action schedule for Thursday 27 August 2026, on Freeview 33.

Overnight

Breakfast

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

Late night

What’s on 5Action today

Thursday’s overnight hours open with World’s Deadliest Weather: Caught on Camera at midnight (series 6, episode 13), then Outback Truckers at 1:05am and two episodes of Trucking Hell back to back from 2:05am, before four hours of teleshopping close out the night from 4am. Cruise TV with LoveitBookit takes both breakfast slots, 7am and 8am, the second one flagged as a new episode.

Winter Road Rescue opens the working day at 9am, then Police Interceptors has a daytime outing at 9:35am ahead of the western Gunsmoke at 10:35am. Man with the Gun, a western, opens the late morning at 11:40am and resumes after a five-minute Entertainment News on 5 bulletin at 12:40pm; Rio Lobo, a second western, follows the same pattern from 1:25pm either side of the 2:25pm news update, running through to 4pm. Highway Thru Hell has its only outing of the day at 4pm — daytime only, and not part of tonight’s primetime — before Motorway Cops: Catching Britain’s Speeders opens the evening proper at 5pm.

5Action tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the 5Action primetime line-up for tonight, Thursday 27 August 2026.

Police Interceptors — 5Action, 6pm

Series 16 opens the evening with a driver over the limit who leads officers into a pursuit that ends badly for everyone involved. A separate call sends a dog handler to a man stranded at the roadside with no clothes on, which is the kind of shift-report line this show has built a whole format around.

Police Interceptors — 5Action, 7pm

The strand jumps forward to series 17 for its second outing of the night. An Audi is clocked speeding through Bradford’s back streets and the pursuit ends abruptly when the car ploughs into a vehicle parked at the kerb.

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

Nicky Campbell’s motorway series returns for its second appearance of the night, this time from a later series than the 5pm edition. Newcastle officers go after a joyrider in a Range Rover, and the pursuit ends with the car crashing before the occupants scatter on foot.

Police Interceptors — 5Action, 9pm

A third and final Police Interceptors of the night, and a different series again — series 21. Dog handler Jen and her canine partner Quantum back up a drugs raid at a disused pub, then face down an aggressive suspect later in the shift.

Timber Titans — 5Action, 10pm

A new episode of the logging documentary, series 1’s eighth. Wind and fog slow one crew down while another loses time to a mechanical breakdown, and the felling schedule suffers either way.

The X-Files — 5Action, 11pm

Mulder and Scully head to a farming community to look into a man who insists he can bend the weather to his will. Series 6, and the sort of case that lets the show have some fun with a straight face.

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?

There are no films in primetime tonight, and the two regular strands interleave rather than running as blocks. Motorway Cops: Catching Britain’s Speeders holds 5pm and 8pm, Police Interceptors takes 6pm, 7pm and 9pm (moving from series 16 to series 21 for the final outing), a new episode of the logging series Timber Titans follows at 10pm, and a classic X-Files episode 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

Thursday is 5Action doing what it does most nights — no films, just cop shows and motorway patrols from 5pm — but the running order is unusual. Rather than blocking Motorway Cops: Catching Britain’s Speeders and Police Interceptors into separate hours, the channel interleaves them: Motorway Cops opens at 5pm and returns at 8pm from a different series, while Police Interceptors fills 6pm, 7pm and 9pm, jumping from series 16 to series 21 for its last outing.

Timber Titans at 10pm is the only thing on the schedule that isn’t a road-patrol chase, and a new episode of the logging series is a reasonable change of pace once the dashcams have had their say. The X-Files rerun at 11pm closes things out on scripted drama rather than another blue-light pursuit.

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