ITV3 TV Guide: Listings, Schedule & What’s On ITV3 Tonight

ITV3 is ITV’s drama channel, launched on 1 November 2004 as a home for the broadcaster’s back catalogue of detective series, period drama and classic sitcoms. Midsomer Murders, Vera, Wycliffe, Inspector Morse: if it involves a body in a village and a detective who doesn’t much like being interrupted, it has probably run here. Today, Thursday 20 August 2026, just ten programme titles fill the channel’s 23 scheduled slots, most of them running as back-to-back pairs. Primetime opens with the second half of a Heartbeat double at 6:55pm, hands the 8pm hour to Vera, moves into a feature-length Midsomer Murders at 10pm and closes with Trial and Retribution at 11:55pm.

ITV3 Schedule: Thursday 20 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete ITV3 schedule for Thursday 20 August 2026, on Freeview 10.

Overnight

Breakfast

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

Late night

What’s on ITV3 today

Daytime on ITV3 is built almost entirely from repeat pairs today: seven of them fall between the small hours and the start of primetime, none stretching beyond a double, and the whole 23-slot day runs on just ten unique titles. Overnight opens with the concluding half of Trial and Retribution’s “The Box” at 12:55am, then a single George and Mildred episode, “Your Money or Your Life” (series 1, episode 5), at 1:55am, a short Unwind with ITV wellbeing slot at 2:20am, and three and a half hours of teleshopping through to 6am.

Breakfast brings the first pair: two more George and Mildred episodes from 6am, “The Right Way to Travel” and “The Dorothy Letters” (series 2, episodes 5 and 6), then two Classic Emmerdale repeats from 7:05am and two Classic Coronation Street episodes from 8:05am, both pulled from the 2009 archive. Two Agatha Christie’s Poirot cases fill the mid-morning from 9:10am, “The Mystery of the Spanish Chest” and “The Theft of the Royal Ruby” (series 3, episodes 8 and 9), and a Heartbeat pair carries the late morning into early afternoon, “The High Life” and “Hung for a Sheep” (series 12, episodes 15 and 16), running 11:30am to 12:35pm. Midsomer Murders’ “Death’s Shadow” (series 2, episode 1) then has the early afternoon to itself from 1:35pm, before two more Classic Emmerdale repeats from 3:35pm and a further two Classic Coronation Street episodes from 4:40pm carry the schedule into early evening, where a final Heartbeat pair, “The Third Man” and “Missing in Action” (series 12, episodes 17 and 18), opens primetime from 5:50pm.

ITV3 tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the ITV3 primetime line-up for tonight, Thursday 20 August 2026.

Heartbeat — ITV3, 6:55pm

Heartbeat closes its early-evening double with “Missing in Action” (series 12, episode 18), the second half of a pair that started at 5:50pm. A bride-to-be won’t set a wedding date until her late father’s ghost is laid to rest, while an unfamiliar policeman turns up in Aidensfield with his own ideas about keeping order.

Vera — ITV3, 8pm

Vera takes the 8pm slot with “Dark Angel” (series 7, episode 2). A body pulled from the river turns out to have links to Newcastle’s drug trade, and Brenda Blethyn’s DCI Vera Stanhope has to reopen an old, unresolved case to find the killer.

Midsomer Murders — ITV3, 10pm

Midsomer Murders runs feature-length at 10pm with “The Electric Vendetta” (series 4, episode 3). A man is found shaved, unclothed and marked with puncture wounds inside a crop circle, and a local ufologist is convinced extra-terrestrials are behind it.

Trial and Retribution — ITV3, 11:55pm

The night closes with the first half of Trial and Retribution’s “Tracks” (series 11, episode 9). Tyre tracks found near a teenage girl’s body in a chalk pit lead Connor and Walker to a local hard man, with the second part still to come.

What kind of shows are on ITV3

Detective drama and cosy crime

The backbone. Midsomer Murders, Vera, Inspector Morse, Endeavour and Wycliffe cover roughly four decades of British detective television between them, and ITV3 works through them in long runs rather than one-off repeats. You can usually pick a series up mid-week and stay with it.

Period and literary adaptation

The Darling Buds of May, and Agatha Christie’s Poirot when it comes round. David Suchet played the part across thirteen series for ITV between 1989 and 2013. These tend to be scheduled in full-series blocks.

Classic sitcom

George and Mildred and its ITV contemporaries fill the overnight and early-morning slots. Nobody’s setting an alarm for these; they’re on while the day gets going.

How to watch ITV3

Channel numbers

Here’s where to find ITV3 across the main UK television platforms:

Free on all of them, no subscription. Numbers shift regionally, so check your on-screen guide if one doesn’t match.

Streaming online

ITV3 streams live and free through ITVX, at itv.com/watch and via the ITVX app on smart TVs, mobiles, tablets and most games consoles. A free account is all that’s needed, no payment details. The ITVX library also carries individual episodes and full boxsets from the channel, Vera and Poirot included, if you’d rather not wait for a repeat to come round.

ITV3 +1 and sister channels

The +1 channel is less useful than it used to be. Since November 2023 it has broadcast only a reduced overnight window rather than a full hour-behind simulcast, so if you’ve missed the start of something, ITVX catch-up is the better bet.

ITV3 sits alongside ITV1, home to Coronation Street, Emmerdale and the network’s biggest primetime shows, and ITV4, which handles sport, action films and older action series.

Frequently asked questions

What channel is ITV3 on Freeview?

Channel 10, free to air.

What’s on ITV3 tonight?

The second of two Heartbeat episodes at 6:55pm, then Vera at 8pm, a feature-length Midsomer Murders at 10pm and Trial and Retribution closing out the night at 11:55pm. Times are in the primetime rundown above.

Can I watch ITV3 online for free?

Yes, live through ITVX on the website, the app, and most smart TVs and consoles.

Is ITV3 free to watch?

Yes, and it has been since 2004. There’s advertising, but no subscription fee on any platform.

Verdict

ITV3 has never pretended to be about new television, and today is a fair illustration of what that means in practice: two Poirot cases and a run of soap reruns and sitcom repeats through the morning, an early-afternoon Midsomer Murders case, then Vera at 8pm and a second, feature-length Midsomer Murders anchoring the back half of the night before Trial and Retribution sees it out. Depth is the whole proposition, and today’s schedule leans on it about as hard as it gets: the entire 23-slot day runs on just ten programme titles, most of them paired repeats between midnight and primetime. It’s a schedule built for dipping in and out of rather than sitting through start to finish, and one of the easier ways into British detective drama on Freeview, since you can land in almost any afternoon or evening slot and still follow what’s going on.

Related: ITV1 TV Guide | ITV4 TV Guide | What’s On TV Tonight | Films on TV This Week