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. Tuesday 11 August 2026 keeps to the channel’s usual weekday shape: archive serials and comedies through the day, then the 1979 Sherlock Holmes film Murder by Decree takes the 9pm slot.

Talking Pictures TV Schedule: Tuesday 11 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Talking Pictures TV schedule for Tuesday 11 August 2026, on Freeview 82.

What’s on Talking Pictures TV today

Tuesday’s schedule opens overnight with the 1978 comedy California Suite at 1:40am, Herbert Ross directing Jane Fonda, Maggie Smith and Michael Caine through the mishaps of four sets of guests at a Beverly Hills hotel. The short comedy A Hole Lot of Trouble, with Arthur Lowe, follows at 3:45am, then a Cinebox Memories musical clip at 4:20am and the Boris Karloff chiller The Veil at 4:25am.

Railway Murders looks back at the 1957 killing of Countess Teresa Lubienska on the Piccadilly line at 5am, before the sitcom Life with the Lyons takes the 6am slot. The Captain’s Paradise, Alec Guinness’s 1953 comedy about a ferry captain running two households at once, follows at 7:40am.

Later morning brings another Cinebox Memories clip at 9:25am and the 1953 crime drama Grand National Night, starring Nigel Patrick, at 9:30am. The French short Le Poulet airs at 11:05am, then Tony Hancock, Sid James and Peter Sellers headline the army comedy Orders Are Orders from 11:25am.

The afternoon opens with William Tell at 1pm, followed by Dirk Bogarde in the 1963 comedy Doctor In Distress at 1:30pm. The documentary Kim Novak: The Golden Age Rebel profiles the Vertigo star at 3:35pm, and the 1952 mystery Whispering Smith Hits London, with Richard Carlson, closes out the afternoon from 4:40pm.

Talking Pictures TV tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the Talking Pictures TV primetime line-up for tonight, Tuesday 11 August 2026.

Litter Defence Volunteers with Roy Hudd — Talking Pictures TV, 6:20pm

A five-minute public information short from 1968, narrated by Roy Hudd, following volunteers working to keep litter off Britain’s roads. It’s the kind of small archive find the channel turns up between the bigger titles.

Whiplash — Talking Pictures TV, 6:25pm

Series 1, episode 31, “Dilemma in Wool”, from 1961. Peter Graves’ Cobb picks up a woman travelling with her supposed husband and baby, then starts to suspect he’s driven straight into a kidnapping.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E — Talking Pictures TV, 6:55pm

“The Foxes and Hounds Affair”, a 1965 episode with Robert Vaughn’s Napoleon Solo racing THRUSH agents, played by Vincent Price and Patricia Medina, to a newly built mind-reading device.

Buccaneer — Talking Pictures TV, 7:55pm

Series 1, episode 4, “A Kind of Cuckoo”, from 1980. Monica starts digging into Burton’s past just as the new board falls out over money and control of the company.

Sherlock Holmes: Murder by Decree — Talking Pictures TV, 9pm

Bob Clark’s 1979 film puts Christopher Plummer’s Holmes and James Mason’s Watson on the trail of Jack the Ripper, and into a conspiracy built to protect him. David Hemmings also stars.

Fortean TV — Talking Pictures TV, 11:35pm

Series 1, episode 11 of Reverend Lionel Fanthorpe’s 1997 strange-phenomena magazine show. This edition covers the health effects of swallowing live fish and digs out archive Yeti footage.

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?

Litter Defence Volunteers with Roy Hudd at 6:20pm and Whiplash at 6:25pm open Tuesday’s evening, before The Man from U.N.C.L.E takes the 6:55pm hour and Buccaneer follows at 7:55pm. Sherlock Holmes: Murder by Decree closes out primetime from 9pm, with Fortean TV rounding off the night at 11:35pm.

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 stands in for a +1 service, with recent broadcasts available to catch up 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 that still does something none of the bigger channels bother with. Old films and archive television get a proper home here instead of the odd graveyard slot. It won’t be for everyone, and some evenings the schedule reads like a lucky dip. That’s also the appeal.

Sherlock Holmes: Murder by Decree is the one to catch tonight. Bob Clark’s 1979 film sends Christopher Plummer’s Holmes and James Mason’s Watson after Jack the Ripper, with David Hemmings rounding out the cast, and it holds up better than most of the period’s Holmes outings. The Man from U.N.C.L.E brings a lighter hour at 6:55pm, Robert Vaughn and Vincent Price sparring over a stolen mind-reading device, and Buccaneer’s boardroom scheming makes a decent bridge between the two.

Related: Film4 TV Guide | Freeview Channel Guide | Films on TV This Week