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

5USA is Channel 5’s home for imported American crime and legal drama, the channel that keeps NCIS, Blue Bloods and the Law & Order franchise on British screens night after night. It launched as Five US in October 2006, took the 5USA name in 2011, and has sat inside the Paramount-owned Channel 5 family since 2014. Tonight, Thursday 6 August 2026, three NCIS series 1 episodes run from 6pm to 9pm, Blue Bloods brings a new series 11 episode straight after at 9pm, and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit closes the night with two series 18 episodes at 10pm and 11pm.

5USA Schedule: Thursday 6 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete 5USA schedule for Thursday 6 August 2026, on Freeview 21.

What’s on 5USA today

The drama stops dead for five hours in the small hours of Thursday morning, with Teleshopping and Ideal World Shopping holding the screen from 4am until 9am. A short Entertainment News on 5 update opens the daytime run at 9am, then NCIS takes over properly, three episodes from series 22 running 9:10am to midday.

The afternoon belongs to Law & Order, six episodes back to back from midday to 6pm, drifting from series 4 into series 5 as the hours pass. Then the schedule does something it doesn’t do often: instead of moving forward, it goes back to the start. NCIS series 1 takes the 6pm, 7pm and 8pm slots, more than twenty years and twenty-odd seasons behind the episodes airing that same morning.

5USA tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the 5USA primetime line-up for tonight, Thursday 6 August 2026.

NCIS — 5USA, 6pm

Three series 1 episodes fill the first half of the evening, more than two decades behind the run shown earlier that same morning. The 6pm opener, “Left for Dead”, has a woman resurfacing from being buried alive with only one memory intact: a bomb hidden aboard a Navy ship.

NCIS — 5USA, 7pm

“Eye Spy” follows at 7pm. A tip from a CIA employee who witnesses a murder through a satellite feed sends Gibbs’ team down an unusually far-fetched trail, even by the show’s own standards.

NCIS — 5USA, 8pm

The block closes with “My Other Left Foot” at 8pm, built around the discovery of a missing marine’s leg in a dumpster.

Blue Bloods — 5USA, 9pm

A new series 11 episode of Blue Bloods takes the 9pm slot. Garrett won’t walk back a quote he gave a local newspaper, Danny and Baez stumble on something unexpected while working a murder, and Anthony is mistaken for a mob figure. Three threads running at once rather than one case, which is fairly typical of how this show splits its hour.

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit — 5USA, 10pm

A series 18 episode airs at 10pm, an older run rather than a current one. An investment banker accuses her client of rape, and the unit has to weigh the accusation against the financial power the accused holds over her.

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit — 5USA, 11pm

A second series 18 episode closes the night at 11pm. The suspect in a rape and murder inquiry threatens to expose secrets belonging to the detectives investigating him, turning the case back on the unit itself.

What kind of shows are on 5USA

NCIS and the naval procedural strand

NCIS is the spine of the schedule. Donald P. Bellisario’s naval investigative drama spun off from JAG in 2003 and has since piled up more than twenty seasons of case-of-the-week plotting, which 5USA works through steadily, usually a season or two behind the current US broadcast.

Law & Order and the Chicago-style franchise format

Dick Wolf’s Law & Order universe, headlined here by Special Victims Unit, is the other pillar. The channel likes to string two or three episodes together in one block, which works because the franchise was built on a rotating cast of detectives and prosecutors rather than a single running story. You can drop in anywhere.

Family and legal drama: Blue Bloods and Bull

Blue Bloods brings the one thing most of 5USA’s imports skip: a family at the centre of the case files, with the Reagans’ dinner-table scenes doing as much work as the investigations. Bull, Michael Weatherly’s post-NCIS drama about a trial-science consultancy, fills a similar afternoon role more lightly. CBS ended it in 2022 after six seasons.

TV movies, classic mystery and reruns

The gaps go to Jesse Stone TV films, Murder She Wrote reruns and reality strands like Cops. Nothing on 5USA is live.

How to watch 5USA

Channel numbers

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

Virgin Media and regional Sky channel numbers can shift slightly depending on your box and area, so your on-screen guide is the definitive source if these don’t match.

Streaming online

5USA streams live and free at channel5.com and via the 5 app (formerly My5) on smart TVs, iOS, Android, and Amazon Fire TV. You’ll need a free 5 account, which costs nothing to set up. Selected NCIS, Blue Bloods and Law & Order episodes also turn up on demand, though licensing means not everything broadcast makes it there and availability windows vary by title.

5USA +1 and sister channels

5USA +1 runs the same schedule an hour behind on Freeview and Freesat channel 130. If a show has already started on the main channel, it’s just beginning on 5USA +1.

The sister channels split the rest of Channel 5’s imports between them. 5Star takes US reality and lifestyle, 5Action takes films and adventure series, and 5Select, the newest of them, handles documentary and factual.

Frequently asked questions

What’s on 5USA tonight?

NCIS’s series 1 rewind fills 6pm to 9pm, three early episodes well behind the series 22 run shown earlier that same morning. Blue Bloods takes over at 9pm with a new series 11 episode, and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit closes the night with two series 18 episodes, at 10pm and 11pm.

What time do the main shows start on 5USA?

Primetime on 5USA typically runs from around 7pm through to midnight, with the headline procedural slot usually landing at 9pm. Daytime hours are largely given over to earlier seasons of the same shows, run in double or triple bills.

Is 5USA free to watch?

Yes, entirely free to air on Freeview, Sky, Virgin Media and Freesat. There are ad breaks throughout, as with any commercial channel, but no subscription fee anywhere.

Can I watch 5USA online for free?

Yes. It streams live at channel5.com and through the 5 app; you’ll need a free account. Selected episodes of its biggest shows also appear on demand afterwards, though not every episode makes the cut.

Verdict

5USA does one job and does it consistently: American crime, legal and genre drama, back to back at almost any hour you turn it on. NCIS is normally the strongest reason to keep it bookmarked, and today it turns up twice over, in two very different forms. Law & Order fills the early afternoon reliably rather than memorably, and once three or four episodes run together it’s easy to lose track of which one you’re on.

Tonight the headline slot goes to Blue Bloods, the only genuinely new episode of the evening, at 9pm. NCIS’s early series 1 run fills the three hours before it, and Special Victims Unit closes the night with two series 18 episodes, an older run rather than anything new.

Related: What’s On TV Tonight | Channel 5 TV Guide | Freeview Channel Guide