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

CBBC is the BBC’s channel for children roughly aged 6 to 12, on air every day from 7am until close around 7pm on Freeview 201. No adverts, on any platform, because the TV Licence pays for it. Today is Thursday 15 October 2026: Shaun the Sheep at 7am, Newsround at 7:45am, Horrible Histories at 9:25am, new episodes of Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?, Witch Detectives and The Football Academy from 4:50pm, then Stage Stars, The Next Step: Cheer and a short Blue Peter make before the sign-off card at 6:58pm holds the channel until 7am tomorrow.

CBBC Schedule: Thursday 15 October 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete CBBC schedule for Thursday 15 October 2026, on Freeview 201.

Overnight

Breakfast

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Also on TV tonight at 9pm

• BBC One: The Celebrity Traitors (from 8pm)
• ITV1: Long Lost Family
• BBC Two: Surgeons: At the Edge of Life
• Channel 4: Our Tiny Islands (from 8pm)
• Channel 5: Love Nature
• Film4: Wrath of Man
• E4: Gogglebox
• ITV2: Big Brother
• ITV3: Vera (from 8pm)
• ITV4: Benidorm

Every channel tonight, side by side · Films on TV tonight · Tomorrow’s TV

What’s on CBBC today

Thursday starts at 7am with Shaun the Sheep and Danger Mouse, and Newsround keeps its 7:45am slot. Super Happy Magic Forest, Boy Girl Dog Cat Mouse Cheese, Grizzy and the Lemmings, SpongeBob SquarePants, a Duck and Frog pair and Odd Squad fill breakfast.

A Bitesize Daily maths lesson on multiplication opens the morning, followed by Horrible Histories, Horrible Science and Operation Ouch! at 10:20am. The early afternoon is Octonauts and a run of short animations, then Winx Club at 2pm and Deadly 60 at 2:25pm, with The Deep at 3pm. Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? arrives at 4:50pm. The evening block is below.

CBBC tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the CBBC primetime line-up for tonight, Thursday 15 October 2026.

Stage Stars — CBBC, 6pm

The first programme of the closing block, and the only new episode in it: series 2, episode 9.

The Next Step: Cheer — CBBC, 6:25pm

The cheerleading spin-off from the long-running dance drama, at series 1 episode 9. It is a repeat, so anyone who followed it first time round has seen it.

Blue Peter – Here’s One I Made Earlier — CBBC, 6:50pm

A short slot built around a Blue Peter make, and the last programme before the channel closes.

Close — CBBC, 6:58pm

The closedown card goes up at 6:58pm and the frequency is off air until 7am on Friday.

What kind of shows are on CBBC

Drama

The Next Step is the nearest thing CBBC has to a returning drama serial: a dance show now ten series deep, with an ensemble cast and storylines that carry from one episode into the next, which is more than most of the schedule attempts. It’s been part of the daytime run for years rather than months. Crookhaven, the boarding school that trains pickpockets to use the skill for good, is the channel’s most ambitious recent commission and has a book range behind it. Malory Towers does a similar job for older viewers when it is in rotation.

Comedy and animation

Most of the daytime is short-form comedy and animation. Danger Mouse and Dennis & Gnasher Unleashed! keep the old British characters ticking over, SpongeBob SquarePants and Teen Titans Go! cover the American imports, and originals like Boy Girl Dog Cat Mouse Cheese, Duck and Frog and Grizzy and the Lemmings fill the ten- and fifteen-minute gaps between them. The one worth actually sitting down for is Odd Squad, a live-action comedy about child agents who solve their cases with maths.

Factual and entertainment

Factual programming leans on presenter-led series such as Operation Ouch!, the medical show that turns up mid-morning on weekdays, and on Bitesize Daily, a curriculum lesson that appears in the weekday schedule. Straight natural history is rare. Almost nothing on CBBC goes out as plain non-fiction any more, and most factual slots have a game or a challenge built in.

News and long-running strands

Newsround goes out every morning, weekends included, and it is still proper news explained without talking down. Blue Peter is the channel’s other fixture: into its seventh decade, having changed presenters dozens of times and almost nothing else.

How to watch CBBC

Channel numbers

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

CBBC is free on all of the above platforms, with no subscription required.

Streaming online

CBBC streams live and free on BBC iPlayer at bbc.co.uk/iplayer, and via the iPlayer app on smart TVs, phones, tablets, Amazon Fire TV, Roku and most streaming sticks. You’ll need a free BBC account, which costs nothing to set up. Most CBBC programmes also stay available on demand for at least 30 days after broadcast, so a missed episode of The Next Step or Blue Peter is rarely gone for good. A valid TV Licence is required to watch live or to stream a programme on the day it airs.

CBBC and CBeebies

CBeebies is the sister channel for the under-6s, on Freeview channel 202 from around 6am to 7pm. Shorter programmes, slower pace, nothing that has to be followed week to week. The switch across usually happens when talking animals stop cutting it and teen drama is still a way off, which is more or less the gap CBBC was built to sit in. See our CBeebies TV guide for that channel’s full schedule.

Frequently asked questions

What’s on CBBC today?

On Thursday CBBC opens with Shaun the Sheep and Danger Mouse at 7am, and Newsround holds its 7:45am slot. Horrible Histories is on at 9:25am, Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?, Witch Detectives and The Football Academy lead the late afternoon, and the evening is Stage Stars, The Next Step: Cheer and a short Blue Peter make before the channel closes at 6:58pm. Full times are in the schedule table above.

What time does CBBC start and finish each day?

CBBC broadcasts from 7am to 7pm every day, then hands its frequency to BBC Three until 7am the next morning.

Is CBBC free to watch, and does it carry adverts?

Yes, CBBC has no adverts on any platform. It’s funded by the TV Licence rather than advertising, though a valid TV Licence is required to watch it live or on the day of broadcast via iPlayer.

Can I watch CBBC on BBC iPlayer?

Yes. CBBC streams live on BBC iPlayer and most programmes stay available on demand for at least 30 days afterwards. You’ll need a free BBC account and a valid TV Licence to watch live or same-day content.

What’s the difference between CBBC and CBeebies?

CBBC is for roughly 6-to-12-year-olds and includes longer dramas, competitive formats and Newsround. CBeebies is aimed at under-6s, with shorter, gentler programmes and a calmer pace.

Verdict

The pitch for a parent is simple enough. Twelve hours a day you don’t have to vet first, and no autoplay quietly nudging a seven-year-old towards something you’d rather they hadn’t found.

It won’t compete with CBeebies for calm, or with streaming for anything aimed at teenagers, and it isn’t trying to. What it offers is Newsround done properly, and a schedule either side of it that doesn’t need a parent hovering.

Related: What’s On TV Tonight | CBeebies TV Guide | CBeebies and CBBC Channel Numbers