ITV4 TV Guide: Listings, Schedule & What’s On ITV4 Tonight

Published: 21 August 2026

ITV4 launched on 1 November 2005, taking over ITV’s off-peak Freeview slot from the ITV News Channel before absorbing what was left of the old Men and Motors the following spring. Two decades on, it’s ITV plc’s channel for live sport and archive action, running everything from live racing to reruns of classic drama and American sitcoms. There’s no live fixture in Saturday 22 August’s schedule, and nothing airs live in primetime tonight: Sharpe takes the whole run-in to 8pm, highlights of Stage Four of the Women’s Tour of Britain follow, then Championship football highlights and a weekly dose of AEW Dynamite see the night out. By day, the World Series of Darts fills a four-hour late-morning block alongside archive drama including Minder, The Professionals and an earlier Sharpe outing.

ITV4 Schedule: Saturday 22 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete ITV4 schedule for Saturday 22 August 2026, on Freeview 26.

Overnight

Breakfast

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

Late night

What’s on ITV4 today

Saturday’s overnight hours open with Dark Side of the Ring at 1:05am (series 2, episode 6), before Two and a Half Men runs back-to-back episodes from 2am (series 5, episodes 7 and 8) and a short Unwind with ITV wind-down slot takes 2:50am, with teleshopping filling the rest of the small hours from 3am. The Best of the 80s gets the day under way at 6am, Motorsport Mundial follows at 6:15am (series 2026, episode 33), and Minder runs at 6:45am (series 3, episode 5), before The Professionals airs two episodes back to back from 7:50am (series 2, episodes 3 and 4). The World Series of Darts: Australian Masters, from Wollongong, fills the whole late-morning and early-afternoon slot from 10am to 2pm, covering the tournament’s quarter-finals through to the final. Made in Britain takes 2pm (series 1, episode 9), The Grand Fishing Adventure follows at 2:30pm (series 1, episode 4), and an earlier Sharpe outing runs from 3:35pm (series 5, episode 2) ahead of the evening’s main event.

ITV4 tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the ITV4 primetime line-up for tonight, Saturday 22 August 2026.

Sharpe — ITV4, 5:45pm

Sharpe takes over the whole run-in to 8pm with “Sharpe’s Waterloo” (series 5, episode 3), Sean Bean and Daragh O’Malley’s Chosen Men called back into service when Napoleon escapes exile and marches on Belgium. It was written as the story’s closing chapter back in 1997, though two further TV films followed nearly a decade on. A solid two hours and fifteen minutes for anyone who likes their history with a musket in it.

Cycling: Women’s Tour of Britain Highlights — ITV4, 8pm

Highlights, not live: the coverage packages up Stage Four, a 138km run from Llanidloes to Hay-on-Wye that takes in the race’s toughest climbing before finishing in the Welsh border town. It’s the penultimate stage, so the general classification picture should be close to settled by the time the peloton rolls into Hay.

English Football League Highlights — ITV4, 9pm

Also highlights rather than live coverage, rounding up the day’s Championship results including Millwall v Norwich City, Preston North End v Wolverhampton Wanderers, Southampton v Stoke City, West Ham United v Charlton Athletic and Wrexham v Watford. The same package repeats on ITV1 overnight.

All Elite Wrestling: Dynamite — ITV4, 10:35pm

This week’s edition, not a series premiere, with Jon Moxley and Claudio Castagnoli among the names on the card. ITV4’s weekly wrestling slot runs a Saturday behind its US broadcast and is also available on ITVX afterwards.

What kind of shows are on ITV4

Live sport: racing, rugby and darts

ITV4 carries the bulk of ITV’s live sport rights outside of ITV1’s biggest occasions. ITV Racing has been the channel’s anchor since horse racing moved to ITV from Channel 4 in 2017, running near-daily meetings alongside the showpiece Saturdays. The Nations Championship, rugby’s new global competition launched in July 2026, means ITV4 now shows live rugby through the summer months, when British fans wouldn’t normally get much international action on terrestrial TV. The channel has also carried live darts in recent seasons, including instalments of the World Series of Darts.

Motorsport, rally and archive sport

Beyond the live fixtures, ITV4 fills its schedule with motorsport digest shows. World Rally Championship Highlights and Motorsport Mundial both round up international series that rarely get UK coverage elsewhere, and the channel runs nightly highlights through Isle of Man TT race week each spring. Archive strands such as The Big Match Revisited and Goals of the 1990s dig into old football footage.

American reruns, action and wrestling

The rest of the schedule fills out with imported American comedy and reality (Two and a Half Men, American Pickers) and classic British crime drama reruns such as Minder. None of it demands your full attention. All Elite Wrestling: Dynamite airs weekly in the late-night slot, with a repeat the following Saturday.

How to watch ITV4

Channel numbers

Here’s where to find ITV4 across the main UK television platforms:

ITV4 is free on all of the above platforms, with no subscription required. Virgin Media and Freesat’s +1 position can move about more than Freeview and Sky, so your on-screen guide is the definitive source if it doesn’t line up exactly.

Streaming online

ITV4 streams live and free through ITVX at itv.com/watch and via the ITVX app on smart TVs, mobiles, tablets and streaming devices including Amazon Fire TV and Roku. You need a free account. Most of the archive and clip-show programming sits in the ITVX library afterwards, though racing and rugby rights usually mean shorter catch-up windows on the live sport.

ITV4 +1 and sister channels

ITV4+1 runs the same schedule an hour behind. The 8pm cycling highlights turn up on the +1 feed at 9pm instead, so anyone who misses the start on ITV4 itself gets a second chance an hour later.

ITV4 sits alongside ITV1, ITV2, ITV3 and ITVBe in ITV plc’s channel family, all streaming through ITVX. ITV1 carries the network’s biggest live sport occasions, ITV3 leans into drama and period pieces, and ITV4 gets the more male-skewing sport and action mix.

Frequently asked questions

What channel is ITV4 on Freeview?

ITV4 is on Freeview channel 26. ITV4+1 is on Freeview channel 59. Both are free with no subscription needed.

What channel is ITV4 on Sky, Virgin Media and Freesat?

Channel 120 on Sky, channel 118 on Virgin Media, and channel 117 on Freesat. ITV4+1 is on channel 220 on Sky; check your on-screen guide for the exact +1 position on Virgin Media and Freesat.

What’s on ITV4 tonight?

Saturday 22 August 2026: no live sport on ITV4 this evening. Sharpe runs from 5:45pm to 8pm with “Sharpe’s Waterloo”, Stage Four highlights of the Women’s Tour of Britain take the 8pm slot, and English Football League Highlights covers the day’s Championship results from 9pm. All Elite Wrestling: Dynamite closes primetime at 10:35pm with its regular weekly edition, not a series premiere.

What is ITV4+1?

A timeshift channel showing the ITV4 schedule exactly one hour later, on Freeview 59 and Sky 220.

Is ITV4 free to watch, and does it have adverts?

Yes, entirely free to air with no subscription fee on any platform. As a commercial ITV channel it carries advertising breaks, the same as ITV1.

Can I watch ITV4 online for free?

Yes, live and free through ITVX at itv.com/watch and via the ITVX app. A free account is required.

Verdict

ITV4 does one thing very well: live sport, without a subscription in sight, from a broadcaster that’s covered racing, rugby and darts for years. There’s none of that tonight, and no live sport at all in primetime. Saturday 22 August falls back on the channel’s steadier furniture instead — a Sharpe double bill running into cycling and football highlights, rather than a fixture worth clearing your evening for.

Sharpe holds the 6pm and 7pm hours outright with “Sharpe’s Waterloo”, the story originally written to close out the series before two later TV films picked it up again. Stage Four highlights of the Women’s Tour of Britain take the 8pm slot, condensing the penultimate leg from Llanidloes to Hay-on-Wye into an hour, and English Football League Highlights runs from 9pm with the day’s Championship results. All Elite Wrestling: Dynamite closes out the night at 10:35pm; it’s this week’s edition of a weekly show, not a series launch. Anyone chasing live sport is better off checking tomorrow’s ITV4 listings, or ITV1 for the network’s bigger fixtures.

Related: What’s On TV Tonight | ITV1 TV Guide | Film4 TV Guide | Films on TV This Week