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, Sunday 16 August 2026, three Blue Bloods episodes open the morning before Columbo takes the channel over for the rest of the day, five films running back to back into primetime, and two Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episodes close out the night.

5USA Schedule: Sunday 16 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete 5USA schedule for Sunday 16 August 2026, on Freeview 21.

Overnight

Breakfast

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

Late night

What’s on 5USA today

Sunday’s schedule opens overnight with a Law & Order: SVU double bill and two NCIS: Los Angeles reruns, before Ideal World Shopping fills the 6am hour. Blue Bloods takes the 9am slot for three episodes from series five, running through to 11:45am. From there, Columbo owns the rest of the day: four films air back to back through the afternoon and early evening, A Bird in the Hand, The Conspirators, Dagger of the Mind and A Friend in Deed, before a fifth, Candidate for Crime, lands right in the 8pm slot itself. There’s no gap for anything else once the raincoat comes out.

5USA tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the 5USA primetime line-up for tonight, Sunday 16 August 2026.

Columbo: Candidate for Crime — 5USA, 8pm

This is the fifth Columbo film of the day, and the one that lands in the primetime slot itself. Peter Falk’s detective goes up against a US Senate candidate played by Jackie Cooper, whose campaign trail has an inconvenient body count attached. First broadcast in 1973, it’s built on the format’s usual trick: the murder happens in the opening minutes, so the drama comes from watching the killer’s story unravel rather than wondering who did it.

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

Series 19 provides the 10pm hour, one of two SVU episodes closing out the night.

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

A second series 19 outing follows straight after at 11pm, taking the schedule through to midnight.

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?

Blue Bloods opens the morning with three episodes from series five, then Columbo takes over completely: four films run through the afternoon and early evening before a fifth, Candidate for Crime, becomes the 8pm primetime billing itself. Two Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episodes close out the night 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 mostly 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

Sunday belongs to Columbo. Blue Bloods gets the morning, three episodes doing the schedule’s usual job of easing viewers in, but from 11:45am onward the channel commits to Peter Falk almost without a break: four films through the afternoon and evening, then a fifth taking the primetime slot at 8pm rather than anything newer.

That’s unusual scheduling even by 5USA’s repeat-heavy standards, and it works because Columbo doesn’t need a first-run hook to hold attention. The two Special Victims Unit episodes that close the night are more familiar territory, filling the 10pm and 11pm hours the way the channel usually does, but it’s the Columbo run that makes this particular Sunday worth noting.

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