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

That’s TV runs almost entirely on British television’s back catalogue: sitcoms from the 1970s and 1980s, a bit of period drama, archive music clips, and a long teleshopping stretch before breakfast. It’s free to air on Freeview, Sky, Freesat and Virgin Media, with no subscription and no app of its own. Tonight’s strongest pairing, Benidorm into Shameless, arrives once the early evening sitcoms have cleared. Full times for every programme are in the table below.

That’s TV Schedule: Monday 17 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete That’s TV schedule for Monday 17 August 2026, on Freeview 56.

Overnight

Breakfast

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

Late night

What’s on That’s TV today

Monday breaks from the long stacked runs this channel often leans on. A Kenny Everett compilation and a couple of Nearest and Dearest episodes see out the small hours before Shop with Shop Unlimited’s teleshopping block takes over from 5am to 8am. After that the schedule turns into a genuine shuffle: Rising Damp, Duty Free, Never the Twain, On the Buses, Bread, Steptoe and Son, Oh, Doctor Beeching! and a second helping of Rising Damp all get a single half-hour slot each between 8am and midday, rarely the same title twice in a row.

The afternoon keeps up the same pattern. Man About the House opens it at 12:25pm, Goodnight Sweetheart follows at 1pm, and then the one hour of proper drama in the day’s line-up, When the Boat Comes In, a 1970s period serial set around a shipbuilding community in the north-east of England, takes the 1:35pm slot. Just Good Friends, a further Man About the House and another Bread carry the schedule through mid-afternoon, and Birds of a Feather closes out the run at 5:30pm just before primetime begins.

That’s TV tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the That’s TV primetime line-up for tonight, Monday 17 August 2026.

That’s 60s – Best Music Live! — That’s TV, 6pm

A quarter of an hour of archive chart footage opens the evening run, the channel’s regular music filler slotted in ahead of the sitcoms proper.

Rising Damp — That’s TV, 6:15pm

Leonard Rossiter’s Rigsby gets the first half-hour sitcom slot of the evening, still one of the better-remembered entries in this schedule.

Steptoe and Son — That’s TV, 6:50pm

The rag-and-bone yard in Oil Drum Lane takes the next half hour. Galton and Simpson’s sitcom has worn better than most of its vintage because the junk was never really the point: the comedy comes from Harold straining after something better than the life he was born into, and Albert finding a way, week after week, to keep him exactly where he is. Wilfrid Brambell and Harry H. Corbett play it closer to tragedy than farce. That’s TV hasn’t published which episode this is.

Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? — That’s TV, 7:20pm

Bob and Terry’s follow-up series gets a shorter slot at 7:20pm before Minder takes over the hour.

Minder — That’s TV, 7:55pm

Arthur Daley and Terry McCann get the longest single slot of the early evening, just over an hour, closing out the sitcom run and leading into the night’s two heavier hitters.

Benidorm — That’s TV, 9pm

Benidorm takes the 9pm hour, a tenth series into the Solana high-rise saga that ran on ITV for the best part of a decade. It’s the newest material in the whole schedule by some distance, and it still plays sharper than most of what surrounds it, built on a cast of holidaymakers who never quite leave.

Shameless — That’s TV, 10pm

Paul Abbott’s Chatsworth estate drama takes the 10pm slot, well into the Gallagher family’s run by this point. It sits closer to drama than sitcom, with a rougher edge than anything else in the evening’s line-up, and it’s the one hour tonight that isn’t really comfort viewing in the same gentle sense as the rest.

Man About the House — That’s TV, 11pm

Robin, Chrissy and Jo close out the hour before midnight.

Mind Your Language — That’s TV, 11:30pm

The night ends with the language-school sitcom at 11:30pm.

What kind of shows are on That’s TV

Sitcoms from the 1970s and 1980s

This is the bulk of the channel. Rising Damp, Steptoe and Son, Man About the House, Bread, Birds of a Feather, Just Good Friends and Mind Your Language cycle through daytime and early evening on a near-constant loop. There’s no theming to speak of: they’re familiar half-hours filling the space between the shopping strands and whatever the channel has lined up for the evening.

Crime and drama reruns

Minder does most of the heavy lifting, often twice in a day, while When the Boat Comes In supplies the one genuinely serious hour in the daytime. Benidorm and Shameless, both decades younger than the rest of it, hold primetime.

Music and variety nostalgia

That’s 60s – Best Music Live! drops in several times a day as a filler strand of archive performance footage, a leftover from when the group ran full decade-themed music channels. Longer compilations such as Ronnie Barker: The Very Best Of turn up as one-off hours.

Teleshopping

Roughly 5am to 8am, given over to mattresses and garden multitools. A free channel with no subscription income has to fill the small hours with something that pays for itself.

How to watch That’s TV

Channel numbers

Here’s where to find That’s TV across the main UK platforms:

Virgin Media’s number shifts more often than the others, so your on-screen guide is the definitive source if it doesn’t match.

Streaming online

There’s no That’s TV app, no catch-up service and no live stream of its own, which puts it a long way behind Channel 4 or ITV. You watch it as it goes out, through a Freeview, Sky, Virgin Media or Freesat box or smart TV. A Freeview Play-enabled television will find and tune the channel for you with no extra setup.

That’s TV regional and sister channels

That’s TV belongs to That’s Media, whose chief executive, Daniel Cass, built the group out of local television licences: around 20 of them, awarded under Ofcom’s Local Digital Television Programme. That’s Manchester, That’s Solent and That’s Glasgow all opt out for local news and community programming for part of the day, then simulcast the national schedule for the rest.

That’s TV 2 works the same archive on a separate schedule. The group also tried standalone channels themed to the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s; several were folded back into the main service or closed outright earlier in 2026, which is why the 60s music show now appears as a filler strand rather than a channel in its own right.

Frequently asked questions

What channel is That’s TV on Freeview?

Channel 56 nationally, or 80 in Greater Manchester. That’s TV 2 is on 65, and the local opt-out versions sit on 7 or 8 depending on where you live.

What’s on That’s TV tonight?

The evening opens with a run of classic sitcoms: That’s 60s – Best Music Live! at 6pm, Rising Damp at 6:15pm, Steptoe and Son at 6:50pm and Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? at 7:20pm. Minder takes the 7:55pm slot, Benidorm follows at 9pm, Shameless at 10pm, and the night closes with Man About the House at 11pm and Mind Your Language at 11:30pm. The table above has the full day.

Is That’s TV free to watch?

Yes, on every platform that carries it. Ad breaks during programmes and teleshopping before breakfast are how it pays for itself.

Verdict

That’s TV is comfort viewing and makes no pretence otherwise. Monday’s daytime shows the format working the other way round from its usual habit: instead of stacking one sitcom across several hours, the schedule rotates through Rising Damp, Steptoe and Son, Bread, On the Buses, Man About the House and half a dozen others in single half-hour bursts, all shows most British viewers have already seen several times over.

The evening holds up well regardless. Benidorm and Shameless are the strongest hour of the night, the point where the channel’s older material gives way to something with a bit more edge, bookended by Minder beforehand and two more sitcoms after.

Related: What’s On TV Tonight | Freeview Channel Guide | Talking Pictures TV Guide | Films on TV This Week