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.

Thursday 20 August is a fairly standard weekday for Channel 4, with Channel 4 News back in its usual 7pm slot. Renovation Rescue opens primetime proper at 8pm with a new episode, before Love You to Death runs its final two episodes back to back at 9pm and 10pm to close out its three-part series. Outback Murder Highway follows straight after at 11:05pm with a new instalment of its own.

Channel 4 Schedule: Thursday 20 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Channel 4 schedule for Thursday 20 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 true-crime documentary Murder Case: The Digital Detectives at 12:05am, followed by a double bill of Celebrity Hunted at 1am and 1:55am. Ramsay’s Hotel Hell checks into a boutique hotel in San Diego at 2:50am, ahead of surfing and vineyard stories on Yorkshire by the Sea at 3:40am and craft ideas on Kirstie’s House of Craft just after 4:30am. Couples Come Dine with Me runs from 4:55am, and 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, Thursday 20 August 2026.

American Pickers — Channel 4, 6pm

American Pickers (series 18, episode 8) opens the evening in Indiana, where Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz get an invitation from a Ford Model A collector and end up chasing a rare, barn-fresh tow truck they weren’t expecting to find in one piece.

Channel 4 News — Channel 4, 7pm

Channel 4 News runs its usual hour-long weeknight bulletin from 7pm, with the day’s headlines, analysis and weather.

Renovation Rescue — Channel 4, 8pm

Renovation Rescue (new, series 2, episode 4) heads to South Wales, where a family have been living on their own building site for eighteen months. With the project stalled, they attempt to finish it themselves, with the show’s hosts on hand to try to get them over the line.

Love You to Death — Channel 4, 9pm and 10pm

Love You to Death closes its three-part run tonight with two new episodes shown back to back, rather than continuing the series into next week. At 9pm, the full extent of Matthew’s fabricated illnesses comes to light and Lisa Hayden-Johnson’s version of events starts to unravel, with a prison sentence looking increasingly likely. The 10pm episode picks up with the press labelling her one of the country’s cruellest parents, as Matthew works with people involved in the original case to establish exactly what happened to him.

Outback Murder Highway — Channel 4, 11:05pm

Outback Murder Highway (new, series 1, episode 3 of 4) turns to the disappearance of Tony Jones, weighing claims from abattoir worker Andy Albury, who has boasted of killing a dozen people, against his family’s belief that there’s more to the case than the record shows.

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, Thursday 20 August 2026: Channel 4 News is at 7pm as usual, followed by a new episode of Renovation Rescue at 8pm. Love You to Death then closes out its three-part series with two new episodes back to back at 9pm and 10pm, and a new Outback Murder Highway follows at 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

Thursday’s schedule brings Love You to Death to a close rather than opening it, with the final two episodes running back to back at 9pm and 10pm. That’s an unusual scheduling choice, but it suits a story building towards a single outcome rather than one that needs a week’s gap between chapters. Renovation Rescue, Channel 4’s regular early-evening property slot, sits ahead of it at 8pm and does its usual job without much fuss.

Outback Murder Highway keeps the true-crime mood going after the watershed, closing the night at 11:05pm rather than launching anything new. Viewers who stay with Channel 4 from 8pm onward are in for a fairly dark evening once the renovation drama wraps up.

Watch

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