Channel 4 TV Guide: Listings, Schedule & What’s On Channel 4 Tonight

Channel 4 is the UK’s publicly owned but ad-funded broadcaster, free to watch and responsible for a fair chunk of the odder British television of the past forty years. You’ll find it at 4 on Freeview, and at 104 on Freeview HD, Sky, Virgin Media and Freesat. It streams live and on demand for free at channel4.com and through the Channel 4 app. Channel 4 News runs weeknights at 7pm; Gogglebox is the Friday 9pm fixture.

Grand Designs and Channel 4 News lead into the evening on Saturday 15 August, before Sandi Toksvig’s Hidden Wonders takes the 7pm slot. Three new documentaries follow back to back: Bettany Hughes’ Lost Worlds: Dawn of Civilisations at 8pm, Dictator: The Hitler Interviews at 9pm and Concorde Crash: Days that Shocked the World at 10pm. The Nicolas Cage comedy The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent closes out the night at 11pm.

Channel 4 Schedule: Saturday 15 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Channel 4 schedule for Saturday 15 August 2026, on Freeview 4.

Overnight

Breakfast

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

Late night

What’s on Channel 4 today: the daytime schedule

The night rolls over just after midnight with Bill Bailey Live: Part Troll, filmed at the Hammersmith Apollo, then Gordon Ramsay takes on a debt-ridden hotel in Idaho on Ramsay’s Hotel Hell at 1:35am. Five editions of Four in a Bed, following the same week’s B&B contestants through Suffolk, Kent, the Scottish Borders and County Durham, run from 2:25am to 4:35am, when Couples Come Dine with Me and Kirstie’s House of Craft take over. A Place in the Sun closes the overnight run at 5:40am, with a couple house-hunting near Torremolinos.

Cheers runs four episodes back to back from 6:05am, followed by four of Everybody Loves Raymond and three of Frasier through the mid-morning. The Simpsons then screens five episodes in a row from 11:25am, before Four in a Bed returns for a second five-episode block covering that week’s final visits and the payout. George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces at 4:30pm and Grand Designs at 5:30pm carry the schedule to Channel 4 News at 6:30pm.

Channel 4 tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the Channel 4 primetime line-up for tonight, Saturday 15 August 2026. There’s no Hollyoaks on a Saturday; it returns to E4 and Channel 4 on weekdays.

Sandi Toksvig’s Hidden Wonders — Channel 4, 7pm

Sandi Toksvig and Raksha Dave dig into Cookham Abbey, once ruled by the early medieval queen Cynethryth, and Toksvig has a go at recreating one of the period’s remedies.

Bettany Hughes’ Lost Worlds: Dawn of Civilisations — Channel 4, 8pm

A new instalment sends the historian to Sardis and on to Gordion, the city associated with King Midas, tracing how myth and archaeology overlap in the region’s oldest settlements.

Dictator: The Hitler Interviews — Channel 4, 9pm

The series closes its run with testimony recorded by figures who spent the war years close to Hitler, used here to trace the decisions that led to Germany’s defeat.

Concorde Crash: Days that Shocked the World — Channel 4, 10pm

A new documentary rebuilds the July 2000 crash outside Paris minute by minute, following the investigators from wreckage to conclusion.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent — Channel 4, 11pm

Nicolas Cage plays a broke, fictionalised version of himself in this 2022 comedy, pulled into a CIA plot after taking a rich superfan’s money for a birthday appearance. Pedro Pascal co-stars.

Popular shows on Channel 4

Comedy and entertainment

Gogglebox has been running since 2013, filming regular families and friends reacting to the week’s telly from their own sofas. When something big happens in the culture, their reactions often land harder than any think-piece. It won the BAFTA for Reality and Constructed Factual in 2014 and is still going more than a decade later.

Taskmaster moved to Channel 4 from Dave in 2020 and has run a new series most years since. Greg Davies’s mock authority and Alex Horne’s deadpan make for a double act that never feels forced. Series 21 began in April 2026 with Amy Gledhill, Armando Iannucci, Joanna Page, Joel Dommett and Kumail Nanjiani.

Factual and documentary

24 Hours in A&E films inside a working NHS hospital, originally St George’s in Tooting and later King’s College, with fixed cameras and no presenter. It trusts the patients and staff to carry it, which they do. Dispatches, running since 1987, does the investigative work few other British programmes go near; its 2023 Russell Brand investigation was made jointly with two national newspapers.

Baking, lifestyle and food

The Great British Bake Off can make an entire nation care about proving times and choux pastry. It moved from the BBC to Channel 4 in 2017 and still pulls some of the biggest entertainment audiences of the year each autumn. Bake Off: The Professionals swaps the amateurs for trained pastry chefs, and the sugar-work sculptures they produce are frankly ridiculous. Come Dine With Me just keeps going in the afternoons, held together entirely by Dave Lamb’s narration.

How to watch Channel 4 live and on demand

Channel numbers

Here’s where to find Channel 4 depending on your platform:

All of these are free-to-air, no subscription needed. Channel 4 takes no money from the TV Licence; it runs on advertising and commercial partnerships, which is why you get ad breaks on both the linear channel and the stream.

Channel 4 streaming service

Channel 4 streams live and on demand for free at channel4.com and through the Channel 4 app, which runs on smart TVs, iOS, Android, Amazon Fire TV, Roku and most major streaming sticks. You need a free account to watch; registration takes a couple of minutes. Alongside the live feed there’s the full on-demand library, box sets, and some series that never appear on linear TV. Most programmes stay up for at least 30 days after broadcast. The service used to be called All 4 before Channel 4 folded it under its own name in 2023.

The Channel 4 family of channels

Channel 4 runs a group of free-to-air digital channels alongside the main service.

E4 is the entertainment and comedy channel aimed at younger viewers. It’s the linear home of Hollyoaks, which airs weeknights on E4, with the omnibus appearing on Channel 4 overnight on Tuesdays. E4 also carries American imports including The Big Bang Theory and Friends. It’s on Freeview 28, Sky 140 and Virgin Media 144.

More4 is where the factual and lifestyle back catalogue goes to live a second life: property, true crime, acquired documentary series, and a great many daytime repeats. More4 is on Freeview 18, Sky 144 and Virgin Media 148.

Film4 is the free movie channel, and a genuinely good one: mainstream Hollywood in the evenings, world and independent cinema later on, no subscription anywhere in it. Film4 is on Freeview 15, Sky 313 and Virgin Media 428.

4seven replays the past week of Channel 4 and its sister channels at different times of day, for anyone who’d rather not use the app. It’s on Freeview 47 and Sky 149.

Frequently asked questions

What channel number is Channel 4 on Freeview?

Channel 4 is on channel 4 on Freeview. If you have a Freeview HD receiver or a TV with a built-in Freeview HD tuner, Channel 4 HD is on channel 104. Both carry the same programmes.

What channel is Channel 4 on Sky?

Channel 4 is on channel 104 on Sky, which covers Sky Q, Sky Stream and Sky Glass. Channel 4 HD is the default feed at 104.

What channel is Channel 4 on Virgin Media?

Channel 4 is on channel 104 on Virgin Media.

What channel is Channel 4 on Freesat?

Channel 4 is on channel 104 on Freesat. If you’re in Wales you may find S4C at 104 on some tuners; check your regional listing accordingly.

What time is Channel 4 News on?

Channel 4 News is on Monday to Friday at 7pm, running until 7:55pm. It’s produced by ITN and streams free on channel4.com and the Channel 4 app alongside the linear broadcast. Weekend bulletins are shorter and earlier: 6pm on Saturday and Sunday, running around thirty minutes.

What time is Gogglebox on Channel 4?

Gogglebox airs on Fridays at 9pm on Channel 4. Episodes are one hour long and are available on the Channel 4 streaming service shortly after broadcast.

What’s on Channel 4 tonight?

Tonight, Saturday 15 August 2026: Sandi Toksvig’s Hidden Wonders opens primetime at 7pm, followed by three new documentaries back to back — Bettany Hughes’ Lost Worlds: Dawn of Civilisations at 8pm, Dictator: The Hitler Interviews at 9pm and Concorde Crash: Days that Shocked the World at 10pm. The film The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent closes the night at 11pm. There’s no Hollyoaks or any other soap on a Saturday.

Can I watch Channel 4 online for free?

Yes. Channel 4 streams live and on demand for free at channel4.com and through the Channel 4 app. A free account is required to watch. The service is available on smart TVs, phones, tablets, Amazon Fire TV, Roku and most streaming sticks. Channel 4 is ad-supported, so adverts are included in the stream.

Does Channel 4 have a streaming service?

Yes. It’s the same free service covered above at channel4.com and via the Channel 4 app, previously known as All 4 before Channel 4 dropped the separate branding in 2023.

Verdict

Saturday’s schedule leans hard into factual programming rather than comedy or entertainment. Three new documentaries run back to back from 8pm, taking in ancient Anatolia, wartime testimony and a 26-year-old air disaster, before the night switches tone completely for a Nicolas Cage comedy at 11pm.

It’s a heavier evening than Channel 4 usually offers on a Saturday, and there’s no soap or panel show to break it up. Viewers after something lighter earlier in the day have Grand Designs and Sandi Toksvig’s Hidden Wonders to fall back on before the documentary run begins.

Watch

Related: What’s On TV Tonight | Channel 4 Schedule | BBC One TV Guide | Films on TV This Week