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.

It’s a full weekday run on Wednesday 19 August, with Channel 4 News back in its usual 7pm slot. Extraordinary Extensions returns for a new episode at 8pm, and the true-crime documentary Love You to Death launches straight after at 9pm. The night closes with a two-part opener of Outback Murder Highway, running from 10pm through to just before midnight.

Channel 4 Schedule: Wednesday 19 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Channel 4 schedule for Wednesday 19 August 2026, on Freeview 4.

Overnight

Breakfast

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

Late night

What’s on Channel 4 today: the daytime schedule

The overnight run opens with property series Building Monaco’s Superhomes at 12:05am, followed by a repeat outing for Ramsay’s Hotel Hell at 1:05am and The Piano at 1:55am. The film Omen fills the small hours from 2:45am, Couples Come Dine with Me follows at 4:20am, and A Place in the Sun and Sunday Brunch see out the night before Countdown opens proper daytime viewing at 5:50am.

Breakfast belongs to sitcom reruns: three episodes of The King of Queens from 6:30am, then three of Everybody Loves Raymond from 7:45am, then four of Frasier carrying the schedule through to 11:10am, when Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares USA takes over. A Channel 4 News Summary lands at 12:05pm, ahead of Find It, Fix It, Flog It at 12:10pm and The Great House Giveaway at 1:10pm. Countdown returns for its afternoon edition at 2:10pm, A Place in the Sun follows at 3pm, and The Great B&B Challenge runs from 4pm. Chateau DIY closes out the afternoon at 5pm before American Pickers opens the evening at 6pm and Channel 4 News at 7pm.

Channel 4 tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the Channel 4 primetime line-up for tonight, Wednesday 19 August 2026.

American Pickers — Channel 4, 6pm

The antiques-hunting Americans get their usual early-evening berth at 6pm (series 18, episode 7), warming up the evening before the news.

Channel 4 News — Channel 4, 7pm

The 7pm bulletin runs its standard hour, produced by ITN and covering the day’s stories in more depth than most rival broadcasts.

Extraordinary Extensions — Channel 4, 8pm

Extraordinary Extensions is back at 8pm with Tinie Tempah visiting a Croydon couple partway through converting a barn into extra living space (series 3, episode 4). It’s the sort of build the format thrives on: ambitious, over budget, and not remotely finished on schedule.

Love You to Death — Channel 4, 9pm

A new true-crime strand launches at 9pm. Love You to Death opens its first series with a case centred on a mother accused of fabricating her son’s illness — a subject British documentary makers keep returning to, for grim reason. It’s the most striking new commission on the channel tonight.

Outback Murder Highway — Channel 4, 10pm

The night’s second new series arrives at 10pm. Outback Murder Highway opens with a killing along one of Australia’s remote highways, the kind of case that barely reaches UK news yet leaves a small community changed for good.

Outback Murder Highway — Channel 4, 11:05pm

The second half of the opening double bill follows straight after at 11:05pm, turning to the deaths of two New Zealand motorcyclists. Watched together, the two episodes work as a single 90-minute launch rather than separate hours.

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, Wednesday 19 August 2026: Channel 4 News is at 7pm as usual, followed by a new episode of Extraordinary Extensions at 8pm and the launch of true-crime documentary Love You to Death at 9pm. A two-part opening double bill of Outback Murder Highway closes out the night at 10pm and 11:05pm.

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

Wednesday’s schedule is unusually heavy on launches for a midweek night. Love You to Death arrives as a genuine series premiere rather than a returning format, and Outback Murder Highway backs it up with a two-part opener of its own straight after. Extraordinary Extensions, the one show here with a track record, sits between them and does what it always does: watchable, slightly chaotic property television.

Three new or newish titles in one evening is a lot for Channel 4 to ask viewers to commit to at once, but the true-crime pairing at least shares an audience, and neither needs the other to make sense.

Watch

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