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

Published: 14 September 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. Tonight, Tuesday 15 September 2026, is a normal weeknight with no live sport. Police Interceptors opens primetime with three episodes from 6pm to 8pm, Motorway Cops: Catching Britain’s Speeders takes the 9pm slot, and the night closes with Fare Dodgers: At War with the Law at 10pm and an X-Files rerun at 11pm.

5Action Schedule: Tuesday 15 September 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete 5Action schedule for Tuesday 15 September 2026, on Freeview 33.

Overnight

Breakfast

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

Late night

What’s on 5Action today

Tuesday’s overnight hours open with a single Behind Bars: World’s Toughest Prisons episode at midnight, then Outback Truckers at 1am and a pair of Trucking Hell episodes carry the schedule to 4am and three hours of Teleshopping. Cruise TV with LoveitBookit fills both breakfast slots, 7am and 8am, the second one a new episode.

Trucking Hell has two short slots either side of 9am, then Police Interceptors airs a single episode from 10:20am and Gunsmoke follows at 11:20am. Young Guns of Texas carries the late morning into early afternoon, split by a brief Entertainment News on 5 update, and A Man Alone takes over from 2:05pm, again broken by a short news bulletin, before Traffic Cops picks up at 4pm and Motorway Cops: Catching Britain’s Speeders hands over to this evening’s schedule at 5pm.

5Action tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the 5Action primetime line-up for tonight, Tuesday 15 September 2026.

Police Interceptors — 5Action, 6pm-8pm

Three separate cases fill the opening of primetime: a car reportedly taken at knifepoint leads to a forced stop, a wrong-side-of-the-road pursuit ends with a police dog finding the fugitive, and a third stop turns up a large kitchen knife during a search on a housing estate. Same dashcam template each time, three different nights’ work for the crews involved.

Motorway Cops: Catching Britain’s Speeders — 5Action, 9pm

Officers Jamie Leslie and Jan Simlesa end up in a high-speed chase after a driver rams a police car and bolts (series 6, episode 6). The motorway setting gives it a rawer edge than the more built-up Police Interceptors footage either side of it.

Fare Dodgers: At War with the Law — 5Action, 10pm

Six revenue protection officers from South Western Railway stake out Vauxhall to catch rush-hour fare dodgers (series 2, episode 5), swapping blue lights for ticket barriers but keeping the same cat-and-mouse structure.

The X-Files — 5Action, 11pm

A former FBI agent’s story about a 1940s baseball player who was secretly an alien closes the night (series 6, episode 20) — one of the show’s stranger, more comic mid-series detours rather than a conspiracy-arc episode.

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?

No live sport tonight. Police Interceptors opens with three episodes from 6pm to 8pm, then Motorway Cops: Catching Britain’s Speeders takes the 9pm slot. Fare Dodgers: At War with the Law takes the 10pm slot 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

Tonight is the channel running to its normal template rather than handing the evening to live sport. Police Interceptors takes three slots from 6pm to 8pm, and Motorway Cops: Catching Britain’s Speeders closes out the cop-show run at 9pm.

Fare Dodgers: At War with the Law is the change of pace at 10pm, swapping road pursuits for a railway ticket-dodging sting, before an X-Files rerun sees the schedule out at 11pm. Daytime runs the usual mix of factual and recovery programming: Behind Bars: World’s Toughest Prisons and Trucking Hell overnight, Cruise TV with LoveitBookit through breakfast, then Gunsmoke, Young Guns of Texas and A Man Alone carrying the late morning into the afternoon.

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