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

Published: 21 August 2026

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. Saturday 22 August 2026 runs 29 programmes through the day, all but two of them unique broadcasts. The afternoon closes with Hobson’s Choice, David Lean’s 1954 comedy with Charles Laughton and John Mills, running from 4:10pm to 6:20pm, before the evening moves through Dick Turpin, Maigret and The Duchess of Duke Street. From 9:05pm the channel hands its whole late slot to The Hound of the Baskervilles, a 2002 adaptation with Richard Roxburgh as Holmes, running two hours. Scotland Yard and EuroTrash close out the night. Full breakdown below.

Talking Pictures TV Schedule: Saturday 22 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Talking Pictures TV schedule for Saturday 22 August 2026, on Freeview 82.

Overnight

Breakfast

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

Late night

What’s on Talking Pictures TV today

Saturday’s overnight run opens at 12:45am with Caroline Munro’s Cellar Club, introducing the 1960 French horror Les Yeux Sans Le Visage (Eyes Without a Face). A second Cellar Club slot at 2:40am leads into Tread Softly Stranger, a 1958 British crime picture, before The Vise at 4:30am and an early outing of The Man from U.N.C.L.E at 5am.

Breakfast is archive adventure serials: Alibi Breaker opens at 6am, then Runaround at 7:20am, Legend of the Hidden City at 7:50am and William Tell at 8:25am.

The morning is given over almost entirely to boxed sets of vintage children’s action series — Batman at 9am, Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans at 9:30am, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons at 10am, Supercar at 10:30am, The Buccaneers at 11am and The Adventures of Robin Hood at 11:30am — six half-hours back to back before lunch.

The Mummy takes the lunchtime slot from 12pm, followed by the short archive insert The Last Film Show at 1:45pm and the thriller Time Lock at 2pm. Cinebox Memories, one of the channel’s brief jukebox reels, runs at 3:30pm ahead of Whiplash at 3:35pm, and the afternoon closes with Hobson’s Choice from 4:10pm, David Lean’s 1954 comedy with Charles Laughton and John Mills, which holds the slot until 6:20pm.

Talking Pictures TV tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

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

Worth a mention before the evening proper starts: Hobson’s Choice, David Lean’s 1954 comedy with Charles Laughton as the domineering bootmaker and John Mills as his put-upon apprentice, runs from 4:10pm and doesn’t finish until 6:20pm — a two-hour anchor for anyone home early.

Dick Turpin — Talking Pictures TV, 6:25pm

A brief Cinebox Memories reel at 6:20pm leads into Dick Turpin’s “The Hostages” (series 1, episode 12), the ITV swashbuckler that turned an 18th-century highwayman into Saturday teatime’s answer to Robin Hood.

Maigret — Talking Pictures TV, 7pm

Georges Simenon’s Parisian detective works “The Mistake” (series 1, episode 9), the archive procedural that has quietly anchored the channel’s early evening for months.

The Duchess of Duke Street — Talking Pictures TV, 8pm

Louisa Trotter runs her Edwardian hotel through “The Reluctant Warrior” (series 2, episode 8), the BBC period drama that’s held down Talking Pictures TV’s 8pm slot for a good while now.

The Hound of the Baskervilles (2002) — Talking Pictures TV, 9:05pm

This is the channel’s whole late evening. Richard Roxburgh plays Sherlock Holmes and Ian Hart his Watson in David Attwood’s 2002 adaptation, with Richard E. Grant as the naturalist Stapleton. Running two full hours from 9:05pm to 11:05pm, it’s the single biggest commitment Talking Pictures TV asks of a viewer tonight.

Scotland Yard — Talking Pictures TV, 11:05pm

“The Wall of Death” (series 1, episode 15) is one of the brisk B-picture case files originally shown as cinema support features before ending up as late-night TV filler decades later.

EuroTrash — Talking Pictures TV, 11:45pm

Episode 46 of the Channel 4 curiosity built from continental Europe’s odder television clips, originally fronted by Antoine de Caunes, closes out the night.

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?

Hobson’s Choice runs on into the early evening until 6:20pm, David Lean’s 1954 comedy with Charles Laughton and John Mills, before Dick Turpin at 6:25pm, Maigret at 7pm and The Duchess of Duke Street at 8pm build towards the night’s main event. From 9:05pm, The Hound of the Baskervilles, a 2002 adaptation with Richard Roxburgh as Sherlock Holmes, takes over the whole late slot for two hours. Scotland Yard at 11:05pm and EuroTrash at 11:45pm close the night.

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.

The Hound of the Baskervilles is the one to catch tonight, from 9:05pm. Richard Roxburgh’s Holmes and Ian Hart’s Watson, backed by Richard E. Grant as Stapleton, make a solid case for this 2002 adaptation over the many other versions knocking about. At two hours it’s the channel’s whole late evening in one go, and it settles most of the night’s viewing decision before the schedule even reaches Scotland Yard.

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