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

Yesterday is UKTV’s history and heritage channel, mixing archive documentaries, military history and natural history with a growing slate of classic motoring shows. BBC Studios has owned it outright through UKTV since 2019, and it’s free with no subscription required. Wednesday’s evening runs through antiques, wildlife and travel documentary before handing the last two hours to the Mathewson family and Bangers & Cash.

Yesterday Schedule: Wednesday 12 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Yesterday schedule for Wednesday 12 August 2026, on Freeview 27.

What’s on Yesterday today

The overnight run opens with a Bangers & Cash: Restoring Classics repeat at midnight, followed by Find It, Fix It, Flog It at 1am and Abandoned Engineering at 2am, before Teleshopping takes over for just over three hours from 3am.

Abandoned Engineering returns from 6:10am, moving from a Soviet-era cinema in Tbilisi to a divided country estate in Ireland, ahead of a Bangers & Cash: Restoring Classics double built around a 1970s Saab 96 and a 1950s Austin Westminster rally car. Secret Nazi Bases and Hitler: Countdown to War both get a late-morning outing, then repeat again in the late afternoon.

The middle of the day belongs to Antiques Roadshow, screened at midday and again at 1pm, followed by two runs of Bangers & Cash. The evening reuses a good deal of this: the 6pm Antiques Roadshow is the same edition shown at midday, and the 10pm and 11pm Bangers & Cash episodes are the two that already ran that afternoon.

Yesterday tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the Yesterday primetime line-up for tonight, Wednesday 12 August 2026.

Antiques Roadshow — Yesterday, 6pm

This is a repeat of the same Scone Palace visit that opened the day at midday. Fiona Bruce works through family jewellery, decades-old T-shirts and a tea caddy well over two centuries old, and Yesterday routinely runs one Antiques Roadshow edition twice in a single day like this.

A Perfect Planet — Yesterday, 7pm

David Attenborough turns to water for this instalment, tracing how its uneven spread across the globe has pushed wildlife toward wildly different ways of surviving. It’s one of the quieter entries in the series, built more around geography than incident.

Michael Palin: Travels of a Lifetime — Yesterday, 8pm

Palin revisits Pole to Pole, the journey that carried him down one meridian through the former Soviet Union, into Africa and on to Antarctica. The retrospective format gives him room to reflect on the trip rather than simply narrate it again.

Simon Reeve’s South America — Yesterday, 9pm

Reeve crosses Bolivia’s salt flats before dropping into Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands and finishing among the forests of Paraguay. Three very different landscapes covered inside a single hour, without it feeling rushed.

Bangers & Cash — Yesterday, 10pm & 11pm

Two episodes close the night, both repeats of what aired at 2pm and 3pm this afternoon. Derek Mathewson juggles three scooters, a Daimler and a teardrop caravan in the first; the second sends him to Blackpool after a 1970 Aston Martin DBS that needs towing before it even reaches the yard.

What kind of shows are on Yesterday

Classic motoring and Bangers & Cash

Motoring is the growth area, and it is essentially one family: the Mathewsons of Thornton-le-Dale. Bangers & Cash produced Restoring Classics, and the channel has built a wider strand around them with Flipping Bangers and Find It, Fix It, Flog It.

Military and social history

Archive war documentaries are what the channel was founded on. The World at War still anchors a run of conflict and social history titles pulled from decades of British broadcast archive.

Natural history and engineering

The rest is natural history and engineering: A Perfect Planet, plus Abandoned Engineering and Secrets of the London Underground, which are really infrastructure documentaries wearing a history badge.

How to watch Yesterday

Channel numbers

Here’s where to find Yesterday across the main UK television platforms:

Yesterday is free on all of the above platforms, with no subscription required. Sky, Virgin Media and Freesat channel numbers can vary slightly by region and box, so your on-screen guide is the definitive source if these don’t match.

Streaming online

Yesterday streams live and free on u.co.uk and via the U app on smart TVs, iOS, Android and most streaming boxes. U is UKTV’s streaming service, formerly known as UKTV Play, and it’s free to sign up for. Most Yesterday shows are also available to catch up on demand once they’ve broadcast, though older archive series can come and go from the library.

Yesterday +1 and sister channels

Yesterday +1 runs the main schedule exactly an hour behind, on Freeview channel 26. Miss the start of a Bangers & Cash episode on the main channel and +1 lets you pick it up from close to the beginning an hour later instead.

Yesterday sits within the wider UKTV stable alongside Dave, Drama, Really and Alibi. If you enjoy Yesterday’s history and documentary output, Dave carries more panel shows and sitcoms, while Really leans towards true crime and paranormal programming.

Frequently asked questions

What channel is Yesterday on?

Freeview 27, Sky 155, Virgin Media 129 and Freesat 155. Yesterday +1 is on Freeview 26. All are free to watch.

What’s on Yesterday tonight?

It’s a documentary-led evening that ends with cars: Antiques Roadshow at 6pm and A Perfect Planet at 7pm lead into two travel documentaries, Michael Palin: Travels of a Lifetime at 8pm and Simon Reeve’s South America at 9pm, before Bangers & Cash closes the night at 10pm and 11pm with two episodes repeated from earlier that afternoon.

Is Yesterday free to watch?

Yes, on every major UK platform, with advertising breaks but no subscription fee.

Can I watch Yesterday online for free?

Yes, live and on demand via u.co.uk and the U app, UKTV’s free streaming service.

Verdict

Pound for pound, Yesterday remains one of the better-value channels on Freeview. The archive documentaries that built its reputation are still on air, and Bangers & Cash has grown into the channel’s biggest draw since it began in 2019.

Wednesday’s evening spreads its bets rather than leaning on one strand. Antiques Roadshow and A Perfect Planet give way to a pair of travel documentaries from Michael Palin and Simon Reeve, and only the last two hours belong to the Mathewsons, with both Bangers & Cash episodes repeating what aired at 2pm and 3pm.

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