ITV1 TV Guide: Listings, Schedule & What’s On ITV1 Tonight

Published: 27 August 2026

ITV1 is the UK’s biggest commercial channel: Freeview 3, channel 103 on Sky, Virgin Media and Freesat, free on ITVX if you can stomach the ad breaks. Tonight, Friday 28 August 2026, ITV1’s big story is a genuine new arrival: The Rainmaker, a legal drama adapted from John Grisham’s novel, launches at 9pm with Milo Callaghan as young attorney Rudy Baylor taking on courtroom heavyweight Leo F Drummond. Ahead of it, Emmerdale takes its usual 8pm slot, straight into Coronation Street at 8:30pm, with Abbey Clancy: Celebrity Homes at 7:30pm. There’s no football and no live sport anywhere on the channel. The evening closes with the film Superman Returns, starting at 10:15pm. Channel numbers are further down the page.

ITV1 Schedule: Friday 28 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete ITV1 schedule for Friday 28 August 2026, on Freeview 3.

Overnight

Breakfast

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

Late night

What’s on ITV1 today — the daytime schedule

Friday’s daytime keeps the standard weekday shape, though every edition has moved on from Thursday. Overnight, teleshopping strand Shop on TV opens the day at 1:25am, followed by The Summit at 3am (series 1, episode 7), Unwind with ITV at 3:50am (series 5, episode 303) and Deal or No Deal: Celebrity Special at 5:05am (series 3, episode 6). Good Morning Britain runs its usual four hours from 6am (series 13, episode 170), then This Morning takes over for three and a half hours from 10am (series 38, episode 170) with the regular mix of news, guests, cookery and health items.

The ITV Lunchtime News and ITV News London run back to back from 1:30pm, then Dickinson’s Real Deal (series 16, episode 11) takes the early afternoon at 2pm. Deal or No Deal follows at 3pm (series 2, episode 42), and Tipping Point holds the 4pm hour with Ben Shephard (series 13, episode 68).

Early evening belongs to the regular weekday edition of The Chase, Bradley Walsh in charge from 5pm (series 17, episode 61). ITV News London takes 6pm, then ITV Evening News runs a full hour from 6:30pm to 7:30pm, ahead of Abbey Clancy: Celebrity Homes at 7:30pm. There’s no football tonight, and no live sport anywhere on ITV1.

ITV1 tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the ITV1 primetime line-up for tonight, Friday 28 August 2026, and it’s an easy night to sum up: a real drama launch, both soaps in their usual places, and nothing else competing for attention.

ITV News London — ITV1, 6pm

Local news and weather open the evening.

ITV Evening News — ITV1, 6:30pm

The evening bulletin runs a full hour tonight, through to 7:30pm, rather than the usual half-hour slot.

Abbey Clancy: Celebrity Homes — ITV1, 7:30pm

Abbey Clancy calls on former Sugababe Heidi Range at the Victorian laundry factory she converted into a family home, then visits Jodie Kidd’s restored cottage. It’s the opening episode of the series, first shown on ITV’s sister channels back in 2023 and getting an outing on the main channel tonight.

Emmerdale — ITV1, 8pm

Ramsden’s investigation looks driven more by resentment than duty, Gabby is emotional, and Caleb and Ruby swap a look that gives away more than either wants to admit.

Coronation Street — ITV1, 8:30pm

Sarah and Kit each move separately against the threat Kacey poses. George comes home to a reckoning with Christina, while Bernie finally talks about what went wrong between her family and Celeste.

The Rainmaker — ITV1, 9pm

ITV1’s headline booking of the night: a fresh adaptation of John Grisham’s legal thriller, with Milo Callaghan as newly qualified lawyer Rudy Baylor, pitched against the veteran defence attorney Leo F Drummond over a case of alleged medical negligence. It’s the only genuine drama series to launch anywhere across the schedules tonight, and the one reason to make a date with ITV1 this evening.

ITV News — ITV1, 10pm

A short fifteen-minute bulletin, wrapping up before Superman Returns starts — there’s no regional follow-up at 10:30pm tonight.

Superman Returns — ITV1, 10:15pm

Brandon Routh dons the cape as the Man of Steel returns to Earth after years away, with Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane and Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor. The 2006 film runs to nearly 1am.

Popular shows on ITV1

Soaps

Coronation Street is the world’s longest-running soap opera, first broadcast in December 1960 and set in fictional Weatherfield in Greater Manchester. Sixty-five years on it’s still one of ITV’s most-watched programmes. The 2026 move to nightly half-hour episodes cut the wandering subplots and the show is better for it. Emmerdale, set in a Yorkshire Dales village, has run since 1972 and leans on long slow-burn storylines, with the odd plane crash or storm when the ratings need a jolt.

Quizzes and game shows

The Chase is the strongest quiz ITV1 has. Bradley Walsh hosts it, and the six Chasers each have their own following: Anne Hegerty, Paul Sinha, Mark Labbett, Shaun Wallace, Jenny Ryan and Darragh Ennis. Mine’s Hegerty, for the record. The format has also spawned foreign versions and a celebrity edition.

Tipping Point, ITV1’s other daily quiz, is the simpler of the pair: get a question right, drop a counter into the machine, hope it shoves some money off the shelf. Ben Shephard fronts it.

Entertainment

Britain’s Got Talent returns each spring for its auditions, with Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden, Alesha Dixon and Bruno Tonioli on the panel. The live shows pull some of the biggest Saturday-night audiences on linear TV.

I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! has aired every autumn since 2002. The premise is thin: recognisable faces stuck in a remote camp with nothing to do but bicker and eat insects. It still pulls millions, which says something, though I’m not sure what.

How to watch ITV1 live and on demand

Channel numbers

ITV1 is free-to-air on all of these. The regional version you get is set by the postcode on your account or box setup.

ITVX

ITV1 streams live and free on ITVX at itv.com/watch, and through the ITVX app on smart TVs, iOS, Android, Amazon Fire TV, Roku, the Sky boxes, Virgin Media TV360 and most streaming sticks. You need a free ITVX account, just an email and password, no card details.

Most programmes stay on demand for 30 days after broadcast. Emmerdale and Coronation Street go up at 7am on broadcast day, hours before they air on TV.

To watch the live stream you need a TV Licence, the same as watching any live channel online in the UK. On-demand catch-up doesn’t. ITVX is funded by advertising like the channel itself; an optional ITVX Premium subscription strips the ads from on-demand viewing.

ITV1 regions, STV and UTV

ITV1 isn’t one channel but a network of regional licence holders sharing the national schedule and producing their own local news. The bulletins around the ITV Evening News come from whichever licence holder covers your area: ITV London, Granada, ITV Central, Meridian, Yorkshire, Anglia, Border, Tyne Tees, Wales and West Country.

Scotland is the exception. In the centre and north, STV (Scottish Television) holds the channel-3 licence as an independent broadcaster. It runs most of the ITV1 schedule, including Coronation Street, Emmerdale, The Chase and Britain’s Got Talent. But it makes its own news and some of its own drama and factual output, and runs a separate streaming service, STV Player. STV isn’t owned by ITV.

In Northern Ireland the channel-3 licence belongs to UTV (Ulster Television), which carries the network schedule alongside its own local news. UTV is owned by ITV plc. Both STV and UTV sit on channel 3 on Freeview in their regions.

Frequently asked questions

What time are Emmerdale and Coronation Street on ITV1?

Both soaps keep to their weeknight run, Emmerdale at 8pm and Coronation Street straight after at 8:30pm, Monday to Friday, landing on ITVX from 7am the same morning. Weekend episodes happen occasionally. Both are on at their usual times tonight, Friday 28 August 2026.

What’s on ITV1 tonight?

Friday’s ITV1 is built around The Rainmaker, a new legal drama arriving at 9pm, with no football or live sport anywhere on the channel. Abbey Clancy: Celebrity Homes opens the evening at 7:30pm, and Emmerdale and Coronation Street hold their usual 8pm and 8:30pm slots. ITV Evening News runs a full hour from 6:30pm to 7:30pm, a short ITV News bulletin follows at 10pm with no regional update after it, and the night closes with the film Superman Returns from 10:15pm. Full listings are in the schedule table above.

Is ITV1 the same as STV in Scotland?

No. Across most of Scotland the channel-3 slot is STV, and in Northern Ireland it is UTV.

Verdict

Friday 28 August is the strongest night ITV1 has had in a while: The Rainmaker gives the channel a genuine drama launch at 9pm, the only true series premiere across all 32 channels tonight, and it lands straight after both soaps in their regular slots — Emmerdale at 8pm, straight into Coronation Street at 8:30pm. Abbey Clancy: Celebrity Homes fills the 7:30pm half-hour ahead of them. There’s no football and no live sport anywhere on the channel.

ITV Evening News runs a full hour from 6:30pm to 7:30pm rather than its usual half-hour, a short fifteen-minute ITV News bulletin follows at 10pm, and there’s no regional update after it tonight — Superman Returns takes over at 10:15pm and runs to nearly 1am. Daytime keeps its familiar weekday shape: four hours of Good Morning Britain, three and a half of This Morning, then the regular weekday Chase at 5pm.

Watch

Related: What’s On TV Tonight | ITV1 Schedule | Films on TV This Week