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

Published: 23 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. Monday 24 August 2026 runs 23 programmes through the day, and the evening turns properly cinematic: a 1948 Technicolor melodrama holds the back end of the afternoon, a subtitled Maigret adaptation takes the 8pm hour, and a 1970s Alain Delon thriller closes out the night. Full breakdown below.

Talking Pictures TV Schedule: Monday 24 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Talking Pictures TV schedule for Monday 24 August 2026, on Freeview 82.

Overnight

Breakfast

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

What’s on Talking Pictures TV today

Monday’s overnight stretch opens at 12:40am with The Big Trees, a 1952 Western with Kirk Douglas, before A Hole Lot of Trouble, a short 1969 comedy with Arthur Lowe, fills 2:30am. A Lifetime Ago with The Baim Collection tours 1950s Florence and Venice at 3:05am, then three archive series carry things through to breakfast: The Rogues (3:30am, series 1, episode 30), The Adventures of Robin Hood (4:30am, series 1, episode 35) and The Buccaneers (5am, series 1, episode 34), with Supercar closing out the run at 5:30am (series 1, episode 6).

The Vise takes the 6am slot (series 1, episode 20), followed by the 1959 service comedy Operation Stogie at 6:30am and the 1966 mystery Who Killed the Cat? from 7:40am.

Mad Mel and Mister Gibson, a 2021 look back at the actor’s career, runs from 9:25am, before Z-Cars takes 10:30am (series 10, episode 8) and The Dark Light, a 1951 lighthouse thriller, fills 11:30am.

The short Look At Life: Roses All The Way opens the afternoon at 12:50pm, then Richard the Lionheart continues its run at 1pm (series 1, episode 24) ahead of Hell Drivers, the 1957 road-haulage drama with Stanley Baker, Sid James and a young Sean Connery, from 1:30pm. The short Window to the Sky 1967 fills 3:40pm, a That’s My Boy episode opens at 4pm (series 1, episode 1), and Blanche Fury, the channel’s main afternoon film, takes over from 4:35pm and runs into the early evening.

Talking Pictures TV tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the Talking Pictures TV primetime line-up for tonight, Monday 24 August 2026.

Blanche Fury — Talking Pictures TV, 4:35pm

Blanche Fury opens the evening at 4:35pm and runs a full two hours, holding the schedule over the 6pm mark. Marc Allégret’s 1948 Technicolor melodrama casts Valerie Hobson as a penniless relative who arrives to work at a wealthy estate, Michael Gough as the cousin she marries for security, and Stewart Granger as the illegitimate heir she really wants. It’s shot in colour at a time when most British studios were still working in black and white, which alone makes it worth a look.

The History of Shippams — Talking Pictures TV, 6:35pm

A twenty-five-minute 1954 short, narrated by MacDonald Hobley, tracing the Chichester paste maker from its 1705 origins to the factory floor.

The Footage Detectives — Talking Pictures TV, 7pm

Mike and Noel dig into a newly turned-up reel featuring the late Penelope Keith, tour a working 1960s newsroom, and tell a Sid James anecdote involving a fish and a cowboy costume (series 1, episode 238).

Maigret — Talking Pictures TV, 8pm

Maigret takes the 8pm hour with Maigret’s War of Nerves, a 1996 television film starring Bruno Cremer in the title role alongside Emmanuel Salinger and Marisa Berenson (series 5, episode 4). Convinced a condemned suspect is innocent, Maigret engineers his escape from custody in order to trail him to the real killer. It’s part of the long-running Cremer series rather than a cinema feature, and tonight’s edition plays in French with subtitles rather than dubbed.

Mort D’un Pourri — Talking Pictures TV, 9:55pm

Mort D’un Pourri closes the night from 9:55pm, running past midnight to 12:25am. Georges Lautner’s 1977 thriller stars Alain Delon as a politician’s friend drawn into covering up a killing, with Ornella Muti and Klaus Kinski among the supporting cast.

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?

Blanche Fury opens the evening at 4:35pm, Marc Allégret’s 1948 Technicolor drama starring Valerie Hobson, Stewart Granger and Michael Gough, and holds the schedule to 6:35pm. The short The History of Shippams bridges that half-hour, then The Footage Detectives takes the 7pm slot. Maigret’s War of Nerves, the 1996 television film with Bruno Cremer, runs from 8pm, and Georges Lautner’s 1977 thriller Mort D’un Pourri, starring Alain Delon, closes out the night from 9:55pm to 12:25am.

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.

Maigret is the one to catch tonight, from 8pm. Bruno Cremer’s take on the character has aged better than most 1990s detective adaptations, and running it in French with subtitles rather than a dubbed version is the kind of choice that sets this channel apart from anything else on Freeview. Blanche Fury earlier in the afternoon is the stronger pick if a film is what you’re after, and Mort D’un Pourri gives the night a proper Alain Delon send-off before midnight.

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