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

Talking Pictures TV is the independent, family-run channel built almost entirely on one man’s private film collection. Noel Cronin spent decades buying up the rights to older British and Hollywood titles through his company Renown Pictures, and in May 2015 he and his daughter, Sarah Cronin-Stanley, turned that archive into a television channel. Eleven years on, nobody else on British free-to-air is attempting anything like it. Friday 7 August 2026 opens overnight with the short 300 Men and a Girl and a Doomwatch episode, runs Basil Rathbone’s Terror by Night through the late morning, and gives the evening to archive television: Rumpole of the Bailey’s first episode, Z-Cars, Public Eye and Caroline Munro’s Cellar Club.

Talking Pictures TV Schedule: Friday 7 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Talking Pictures TV schedule for Friday 7 August 2026, on Freeview 82.

What’s on Talking Pictures TV today

Friday’s small hours open with the short 300 Men and a Girl at 1:10am, a Doomwatch episode at 1:35am and The Paper Gallows at 2:40am, before Burke’s Law takes 4am and Railway Murders 5am.

Noel Cronin’s own What’s On TPTV introduces the day at 6am, then Command Performance runs from 6:10am and Serious Charge from 7:55am. Terror by Night, one of the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes pictures, fills 9:55am, followed by The Lucy Show at 11:10am and The Steel Key at 11:45am.

The afternoon runs The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre at 1:05pm, an Adventures of Robin Hood at 2:15pm, My Brother’s Keeper at 2:45pm and The Cheaters at 4:30pm, before A Family at War opens the evening at 5pm.

Talking Pictures TV tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the Talking Pictures TV primetime line-up for tonight, Friday 7 August 2026.

A Family at War — Talking Pictures TV, 5pm

The series two opener, from 1971, with Colin Douglas and Shelagh Fraser. New Year 1940, and Sefton is fighting to keep Edwin at the works while David slides back into old habits.

Rumpole of the Bailey — Talking Pictures TV, 6pm

The very first episode, “Rumpole and the Younger Generation”, with Leo McKern in the part he never quite escaped. He gets a teenager off a charge of robbery with violence. A good place to start if you’ve never watched it.

Z-Cars — Talking Pictures TV, 7pm

“Happy Families”, from 1964, with Brian Blessed and Joss Ackland. Explicit photographs are circulating at a local school and Barlow needs Watt’s help to find who is behind it.

Public Eye — Talking Pictures TV, 8pm

The series six opener from 1972. Alfred Burke’s Frank Marker is hired to look into a bankrupt shirt manufacturer and finds rather more deceit than the job description suggested.

Cellar Club with Caroline Munro — Talking Pictures TV, 9:05pm and 10:10pm

Two short link segments rather than a programme in its own right. At 9:05pm Caroline Munro introduces “Viktoria”, a 1977 Supernatural with Judy Cornwell and Catherine Schell, about a girl who becomes fixated on a new doll after her mother’s suspicious death. At 10:10pm she returns to set up a Tales of Tomorrow starring James Dean, and hands over to Kim Newman for Cellar Club Live.

What kind of films and shows are on Talking Pictures TV

Vintage British and Hollywood films

The backbone of the schedule is the Renown Pictures library: British films from the 1930s to the 1970s, plus war pictures, adventure films and the odd Hollywood title bought in to fill a gap. Quality swings wildly from one afternoon to the next, which is part of the deal.

Archive TV drama and detective series

Early evenings lean on serialised drama from the 1950s through the 1980s: Z Cars, Public Eye, Hannay and others of that stripe. Much of it isn’t shown anywhere else on British television, and some of it hadn’t been shown anywhere at all for thirty-odd years before this channel dug it out. If you want to know why people are fond of Talking Pictures TV rather than merely tolerant of it, this is the part of the schedule to point at.

Cult strands, B-movies and magazine shows

Late nights get stranger: horror and cult titles through Caroline Munro’s Cellar Club, oddities like Supernatural, imported curios.

How to watch Talking Pictures TV

Channel numbers

Here’s where to find Talking Pictures TV across the main UK television platforms:

Talking Pictures TV is free on all of the above platforms, with no subscription required. It doesn’t run a +1 timeshift channel, so these are the only live feeds available.

TPTV Encore catch-up

TPTV Encore is the channel’s own free streaming service, launched in December 2021 and run through a browser at tptvencore.co.uk, with an app on Android. Register an email address and recent broadcasts are usually there for about a week.

The better reason to bother with it is what sits behind the catch-up: a deep archive that includes Southern Television material never given a regular slot on the main channel. Those older titles stay free after the catch-up window shuts, but they carry adverts.

Frequently asked questions

What’s on Talking Pictures TV tonight?

Friday evening opens with A Family at War at 5pm and the first ever Rumpole of the Bailey at 6pm, before Z-Cars takes 7pm and Public Eye 8pm. From 9:05pm Caroline Munro’s Cellar Club introduces a 1977 Supernatural, then returns at 10:10pm for a Tales of Tomorrow starring James Dean and hands over to Kim Newman for Cellar Club Live.

What channel is Talking Pictures TV on?

Freeview 82, Sky 324, Virgin Media 445 and Freesat 306. It’s also on Freely at channel 36. All are free to watch.

Does Talking Pictures TV have a +1 channel?

No. TPTV Encore is the channel’s replacement for a +1 service, letting you catch up with recent broadcasts on demand instead.

Is Talking Pictures TV free to watch?

Yes, entirely. It’s advertising-funded rather than subscription-funded, on the live channel and on TPTV Encore alike.

Verdict

I rate Talking Pictures TV highly for exactly what it is: a small independent operation doing something none of the bigger channels bother with anymore, giving old films and archive television a proper home instead of the odd graveyard slot. It won’t be for everyone. Some evenings the schedule reads like a lucky dip, but that’s also the appeal.

The first ever Rumpole of the Bailey at 6pm is the one to catch tonight. Leo McKern is already fully formed in the part, defending a teenager on a robbery charge, and it is a rare chance to see a series most people only know from its later, more comfortable years. Stay on for Public Eye at 8pm if you prefer your archive drama bleaker, or Caroline Munro’s Cellar Club from 9:05pm for the horror strand.

Related: Film4 TV Guide | Freeview Channel Guide