E4 TV Guide: Listings, Schedule & What’s On E4 Tonight

Published: 25 August 2026

E4 is Channel 4’s younger-skewing entertainment channel: American sitcom reruns through the day, reality formats after dark, and the Hollyoaks first-look Monday to Wednesday at 7pm. Wednesday 26 August 2026 has no film anywhere in the schedule. Four episodes of The Simpsons run from 5pm, two of them inside primetime, before Hollyoaks brings the day-ahead first-look of episode 102 at 7pm — the week’s last new episode, since the first-look run stops after Wednesday. A fifth, unrelated Simpsons rerun from 1995 follows at 7:30pm. Ladies of London: The New Reign reaches its third episode at 8pm rather than the launch its “Brand new series” tag suggests, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares USA takes 9pm with the Freddy’s Steak House episode — again despite a “brand new series” flag that doesn’t square with the series 4 episodes E4 already aired earlier today — and Gogglebox and First Dates close the night.

E4 Schedule: Wednesday 26 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete E4 schedule for Wednesday 26 August 2026, on Freeview 13.

Overnight

Breakfast

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

Late night

What’s on E4 today

Overnight opens with Naked Attraction at 12:05am, then last night’s Below Deck Down Under and Ladies of London: The New Reign repeat at 1:10am and 2:10am before Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares USA at 3am. Two episodes of The Goldbergs and three of Brooklyn Nine-Nine carry the graveyard shift through to 6am.

Hollyoaks opens the broadcast day with two episodes, at 6am and 6:30am — episodes 99 and 100, the overnight and breakfast repeats, not tonight’s first-look. A short Rude(ish) Tube Shorts and Couples Come Dine with Me follow at 7am, then two more episodes of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares USA run from 8am to 10am.

America’s Funniest Home Videos takes 10am and Below Deck Mediterranean follows at 11am. Four episodes of The Simpsons, all from series 21, run from midday to 1:30pm, then two of Brooklyn Nine-Nine and four of Modern Family carry the schedule to 5pm. A second run of four Simpsons episodes, spanning series 27, takes the schedule from 5pm to 6:30pm and into the edge of primetime, before Hollyoaks’ 7pm first-look.

E4 tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the E4 primetime line-up for tonight, Wednesday 26 August 2026.

The Simpsons — E4, 6pm

E4’s Simpsons run continues at 6pm with a modern-era instalment, series 27 episode 13, built around a chemistry pun for a title. Professor Frink tries to engineer romance through science, while a batch of dodgy medication sends Grampa and his fellow Retirement Castle residents off on a hallucinogenic trip.

The Simpsons — E4, 6:30pm

The second half of the pair follows straight on at 6:30pm with episode 14, “Gal of Constant Sorrow”. Bart and Lisa strike up a friendship with a homeless folk singer, while Homer’s latest DIY attempt goes wrong and leaves the family cat trapped inside the walls, forcing a rescue mission.

Hollyoaks — E4, 7pm

The 7pm hour belongs to Hollyoaks (a new episode, series 2026, episode 102) — E4’s first-look run only goes Monday to Wednesday, so this is the week’s last new episode ahead of Channel 4.

The Simpsons — E4, 7:30pm

A different vintage of the show follows at 7:30pm, and it’s not part of the run that opened the evening. This is series 6’s “Homer vs. Patty and Selma”, a standalone rerun roughly two decades older than the pair before it. Homer is forced to go cap in hand to his sisters-in-law for a loan after a pumpkin-futures gamble goes badly wrong.

Ladies of London: The New Reign — E4, 8pm

At 8pm, it’s Ladies of London: The New Reign (series 4, episode 3) — not the series launch its “Brand new series” tag implies; episode 2 aired the night before.

Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares USA — E4, 9pm

The 9pm hour belongs to Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares USA (series 3, episode 1), the Freddy’s Steak House instalment set in Indiana. E4 has already shown series 4 episodes of the same show earlier today, so the “brand new series” claim on this one doesn’t hold up.

Gogglebox — E4, 10pm

Gogglebox returns for the second episode of series 22 at 10pm. The regular households settle in front of the week’s biggest television moments and deliver their usual unfiltered, unscripted reactions, taking in a spread of drama, documentary and news coverage along the way.

First Dates — E4, 11pm

First Dates closes the night at 11pm with the third episode of series 17. A fresh set of singles meet for the first time over dinner at the restaurant, each hoping the evening ends in a second date, while the waiting staff look on with their usual mix of warmth and side-eye.

Popular shows on E4

Reality

Married at First Sight Australia is E4’s most-watched acquisition and the one that reorders the whole schedule when a series is on. Three or four episodes a week, strangers paired off by “experts”, married at first meeting, then sat at a dinner party until somebody says the unforgivable thing. The UK version plays much quieter. Its couples absorb the pressure rather than detonate at the table, which is more realistic and considerably less watchable.

Celebs Go Dating has been on E4 since 2016 and has never changed shape: two relationship coaches, currently Paul C. Brunson and Anna Williamson, a handful of celebrity clients, and dates with members of the public.

Gogglebox is a Friday-night Channel 4 show. E4 runs the repeats.

Soap

Hollyoaks has been on Channel 4 since 1995 and in E4’s first-look slot long enough that most viewers under 35 have never known it any other way. It takes on the heavy issue storylines soaps go in for, mental health and addiction and the rest, while keeping the pace quick and the cast young.

US comedy

The Big Bang Theory, Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Modern Family anchor daytime, and all three sit on Channel 4’s streaming service on demand. The Simpsons is the exception to everything. E4 holds so much of it that a single day can jump across two decades of the show without anyone at the channel appearing to mind.

How to watch E4

Channel numbers

Where to find E4 by platform:

E4 is free-to-air everywhere. A Freeview aerial carries it, and so does every Sky package as standard.

Streaming

E4 streams live and on demand for free through Channel 4’s app and channel4.com, covering smart TVs, iOS, Android, Amazon Fire TV, Roku and most streaming sticks. Registration is free and asks for no payment details. Adverts play regardless. The full E4 library is there as well, including complete runs of Married at First Sight Australia and MAFS UK, and Hollyoaks as catch-up after transmission.

E4 +1, E4 Extra and the Channel 4 family

E4 +1 on Freeview 30 is a straight one-hour timeshift, so 7pm here is 8pm there.

E4 Extra is the sister channel for repeats and extra runs of E4’s biggest shows. It launched in 2022 in the slot 4Music vacated, and sits on Freeview 31 and Sky 139.

Both sit in the wider Channel 4 family alongside the main channel, More4 for factual and Film4 for cinema. All of them are commercially funded. Channel 4 is publicly owned but takes no licence fee money and no government subsidy, a distinction worth remembering the next time somebody complains about the adverts.

Frequently asked questions

What’s on E4 tonight?

No film tonight — the evening is built around The Simpsons, Hollyoaks and reality shows. The Simpsons airs four times from 5pm, including the two instalments inside primetime, and a further, unconnected episode from 1995 follows at 7:30pm. Hollyoaks brings its 7pm first-look with a new episode — the last new episode of the week, since the first-look run only goes Monday to Wednesday. Ladies of London: The New Reign reaches its third episode at 8pm rather than a fresh launch, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares USA takes 9pm with the Freddy’s Steak House episode, Gogglebox is at 10pm and First Dates closes the night at 11pm. Times are in the schedule table above.

Does E4 have adverts?

Yes. It is a commercial channel, so ad breaks run on linear TV and on the streaming free tier alike. No licence fee, no subscription. Record it on a PVR and you can skip them as usual.

When did E4 launch?

E4 launched on 18 January 2001 as a companion to Channel 4, aimed at younger viewers from day one. It began as a subscription service, later went free-to-air, and reached Freeview in May 2005.

Verdict

Wednesday is a proper weeknight for E4: no film, and a run of returning strands instead. The Simpsons runs four times from 5pm, taking in the 6pm and 6:30pm primetime slots, before a separate 1995 rerun — unconnected to that block — follows at 7:30pm. Hollyoaks delivers its day-ahead first-look at 7pm for the last time this week, since the first-look run only goes Monday to Wednesday. Ladies of London: The New Reign reaches its third episode at 8pm rather than a fresh launch, and Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares USA takes 9pm with the Freddy’s Steak House episode — another slot where the feed’s “brand new series” wording looks like leftover boilerplate rather than fact, since E4 has already shown a different series of the same programme earlier today. The night closes with an hour of Gogglebox and a fresh First Dates.

Daytime runs on a tighter set of strands than the evening: Naked Attraction and overnight repeats of Below Deck Down Under and Ladies of London carry the small hours, two Hollyoaks repeats and Couples Come Dine with Me lead into Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares USA at breakfast, and The Simpsons anchors both the middle of the day and the run-up to primetime around Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Modern Family — a schedule built on a small number of strands repeated through the day rather than a wide daily spread.

Related: What’s On TV Tonight | Channel 4 TV Guide | E4 Schedule | Films on TV This Week