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

5Star is Channel 5’s reality and factual-entertainment channel, built on the landlord, tenant and bailiff documentaries that made its daytime reputation, plus imported true-story series and Piers Morgan’s nightly opinion slot. It’s part of the Paramount-owned Channel 5 stable and free to watch on Freeview 32. Tonight, Wednesday 19 August 2026, Home and Away is on 5Star rather than the main Channel 5 channel: a repeat opens the evening at 6pm, followed by the new episode at 6:30pm. Casualty 24/7: Every Second Counts and GPs: Behind Closed Doors carry the 7pm and 8pm hours, before the schedule turns to film, with Transporter 2 taking the 9pm slot.

5Star Schedule: Wednesday 19 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete 5Star schedule for Wednesday 19 August 2026, on Freeview 32.

Overnight

Breakfast

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

Late night

What’s on 5Star today

Wednesday’s overnight run opens with Surgeons: A Matter of Life or Death (series 2, episode 3) at midnight, before Cold Case Killers (series 2, episode 6) follows at 1am. Casualty 24/7: Every Second Counts (series 6, episode 6) takes the 2am slot, Skin A&E (series 6, episode 11) follows at 2:45am, and a single episode of Friends (series 9, episode 22) closes out the small hours at 3:35am. Teleshopping then holds the schedule from 4am through to 7am.

Daytime opens with two shopping strands, Shop: Must Have Ideas at 7am and eFOLDi Mobility Scooters at 7:30am, before two back-to-back episodes of Bargain-Loving Brits in the Sun run from 8am (series 14, episodes 65 and 66). Nightmare Tenants, Slum Landlords takes the 10am hour (series 5, episode 7), then three episodes of Traffic Cops fill 11am to 2pm and three of Police Interceptors follow from 2pm to 5pm. Car Pound Cops (series 2, episode 3) closes out the afternoon at 5pm, before Home and Away opens the evening below.

5Star tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the 5Star primetime line-up for tonight, Wednesday 19 August 2026.

Home and Away — 5Star, 6pm

The evening opens with a repeat, series 39 episode 126, buying 5Star half an hour before the new episode that follows.

Home and Away — 5Star, 6:30pm

Episode 127 follows straight after and is genuinely new. 5Star, not the main Channel 5 channel, remains the soap’s first-run home on weeknights.

Casualty 24/7: Every Second Counts — 5Star, 7pm

Series 6 continues at 7pm with episode 11, another shift with the frontline hospital staff this fly-on-the-wall strand has followed for six series now.

GPs: Behind Closed Doors — 5Star, 8pm

Episode 33 of series 8 takes the 8pm hour, one of the surgery-based observational documentaries 5Star schedules most weeknights.

Transporter 2 — 5Star, 9pm

Transporter 2 (2005) gives 5Star its evening film. Jason Statham returns as Frank Martin, the ex-Special Forces driver now doing security work in Miami, when the young son of a client is snatched and the job pulls him straight back into the car chases and close-quarters fighting the franchise built its name on. The film runs to 10:45pm, broken only by a short news bulletin at 10:05pm rather than ending and restarting.

Entertainment News on 5 — 5Star, 10:05pm

A five-minute entertainment bulletin, not a second programme — it interrupts Transporter 2 rather than closing it.

Transporter 2 — 5Star, 10:10pm

The film picks back up here and plays through to 10:45pm.

Special Forces: Most Daring Missions — 5Star, 10:45pm

Series 1 continues with episode 2, looking back at Operation Barras, the 2000 British military operation in Sierra Leone that freed six soldiers and an army liaison officer held by the West Side Boys militia.

Scam City: Don’t Get Caught Out! — 5Star, 11:40pm

The consumer strand closes the night with a New York edition, working through the tricks aimed at tourists in the city.

What kind of shows are on 5Star

Landlord, tenant and bailiff documentaries

This is where 5Star has its own patch. Nightmare Tenants, Slum Landlords and its spin-off Extreme Nightmare Tenants follow eviction specialists and rogue-landlord investigations, while Call the Bailiffs: Time to Pay Up! turns the same doorstep tension towards unpaid debt. No other British free-to-air channel gives this much schedule space to the subject.

Reality, true-story and consumer documentary

Skin A&E, Dirty Home Rescue and Scam City: Don’t Get Caught Out! cover the rest of the factual output, and imports such as Dogs Behaving (Very) Badly Australia bring in versions of formats British viewers already know from the domestic originals.

Opinion, news and chat

Piers Morgan Uncensored gives 5Star a nightly dose of studio argument, a YouTube-native format repurposed for a terrestrial evening slot since the 2025 deal.

Sitcom reruns

Friends is the channel’s long-serving gap-filler, though these days it tends to surface in the small hours rather than in the morning blocks it once held.

How to watch 5Star

Channel numbers

Here’s where to find 5Star across the main UK television platforms:

5Star is free on all of the above platforms, with no subscription required. Virgin Media and Freesat channel numbers may vary slightly depending on your box and region, so your on-screen guide is the definitive source if these don’t match.

Streaming online

5Star streams live and free at channel5.com and via the 5 app (formerly known as My5, before Channel 5’s 2025 rebrand unified its linear and streaming services under one name) on smart TVs, iOS, Android, and Amazon Fire TV. You’ll need a free account, which costs nothing to set up. Many 5Star programmes also turn up on demand, though not every title stays available indefinitely.

5Star +1 and sister channels

5Star+1 plays the same schedule an hour behind, which is useful on a channel that so often runs three episodes of the same series in a row. It’s on Sky (228), Virgin Media (326) and Freesat (141). There’s no +1 slot for 5Star on Freeview, so Freeview viewers who miss the start of something have to pick it up on demand.

5Star sits alongside two other channels in the Paramount-owned Channel 5 family. 5USA, on Freeview 33, carries US crime dramas and imported procedurals. 5Action, on Freeview 21, focuses on action films and adventure series. All three, plus the main Channel 5, stream together through the 5 app.

Frequently asked questions

What channel is 5Star on Freeview?

5Star is on Freeview channel 32. It’s also on Sky (128), Virgin Media (126) and Freesat (131), all free with no subscription.

What’s on 5Star tonight?

It’s Wednesday, so the evening opens with Home and Away — a repeat at 6pm, then the new episode at 6:30pm, both on 5Star rather than the main Channel 5 channel. Casualty 24/7: Every Second Counts and GPs: Behind Closed Doors take the 7pm and 8pm hours, before the 2005 film Transporter 2 leads from 9pm through to 10:45pm, paused briefly for a news bulletin at 10:05pm. Special Forces: Most Daring Missions and Scam City: Don’t Get Caught Out! see out the night. The schedule table above has the exact times for each.

Can I watch 5Star online for free?

Yes. It streams live at channel5.com and through the 5 app (formerly My5); you’ll need a free account. Many programmes also appear on demand afterwards.

Verdict

Wednesday pairs Home and Away with a film rather than 5Star’s more usual run of documentaries. The soap is on 5Star rather than the main Channel 5 channel tonight, with a repeat at 6pm and the new episode at 6:30pm, before Casualty 24/7: Every Second Counts and GPs: Behind Closed Doors carry the 7pm and 8pm hours. Transporter 2 then leads from 9pm to 10:45pm, interrupted only by a short news bulletin, before Special Forces: Most Daring Missions and Scam City: Don’t Get Caught Out! close out the night.

It’s a lighter premiere night than usual: the 6:30pm Home and Away episode is the only genuinely new instalment, with the rest of primetime built from returning documentary strands and a two-decade-old action film rerun. The daytime schedule sticks to the channel’s landlord and traffic-cop staples — Bargain-Loving Brits in the Sun, Nightmare Tenants, Slum Landlords, Traffic Cops and Police Interceptors — filling the hours before Home and Away opens the evening.

Related: What’s On TV Tonight | Channel 5 TV Guide | Freeview Channel Guide | Films on TV This Week