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

Published: 27 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. Friday 28 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 from two different series, Police Interceptors takes 6pm, 7pm and 9pm — the first two consecutive, the third from a much later series — and a pair of Cops repeats sees out the 10pm hour before a classic X-Files rerun closes the night at 11pm.

5Action Schedule: Friday 28 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete 5Action schedule for Friday 28 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 Behind Bars: World’s Toughest Prisons at midnight (series 3, episode 2), then Outback Truckers at 1am and two episodes of Trucking Hell back to back from 2am, before three 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. The Last Hunt opens the late morning at 11:40am and resumes after a five-minute Entertainment News on 5 bulletin at 12:40pm; Beyond the Law, a second film, follows the same pattern from 1:45pm either side of the 2:45pm 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, Friday 28 August 2026.

Police Interceptors — 5Action, 6pm and 7pm

Police Interceptors opens the evening with back-to-back series 17 outings, episode 2 at 6pm running straight into episode 3 at 7pm. Same formula both times: a marked car spots something wrong, the pursuit runs its course, and the crew explain afterwards what gave the driver away.

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

Motorway Cops: Catching Britain’s Speeders breaks the Police Interceptors run at 8pm with a series 5 episode, Nicky Campbell narrating high-speed pursuits on the motorway network rather than the urban stops that dominate the hour either side of it.

Police Interceptors — 5Action, 9pm

Police Interceptors returns for a third helping at 9pm, but this one is a different animal from the 6pm and 7pm pair: it’s drawn from series 21, a much more recent run than the series 17 double that opened the night.

Cops — 5Action, 10pm and 10:30pm

Two half-hours of Cops take the 10pm hour. The feed doesn’t carry a number for the first; the 10:30pm follow-up is series 37, episode 31. Older, rougher American ride-along footage than the polished British formats earlier in the evening.

The X-Files — 5Action, 11pm

The X-Files closes the night at 11pm with a series 6 rerun in which Skinner is given 24 hours to live, forcing Mulder and Scully into a race against a threat that has already put a clock on their boss.

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 from two different series, Police Interceptors takes 6pm, 7pm and 9pm (the first two consecutive from series 17, the 9pm one a later episode from series 21), a pair of Cops repeats fills the 10pm hour, 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

Friday 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 17 to series 21 for its last outing.

Cops takes the 10pm hour with two half-hour episodes, the only stretch of the evening that isn’t a UK road-patrol chase, before 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