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. Monday’s daytime works through wartime history and the Mathewsons’ car business, then the evening opens with Antiques Roadshow and a rare outing for the original Blue Planet before four legs of Canal Boat Diaries and a Bangers & Cash double bill carry the schedule through to midnight. Full breakdown below.

Yesterday Schedule: Monday 17 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Yesterday schedule for Monday 17 August 2026, on Freeview 27.

Overnight

Breakfast

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

Late night

What’s on Yesterday today

Monday’s schedule opens just after midnight with the tail end of a Canal Boat Diaries leg up the Rochdale Canal, the stretch known to narrowboat crews as the “Everest of Canals” for the grief it gives them near the summit. Flipping Bangers follows at 1am, Gus and Will settling for an older Saab 99 after they can’t track down the classic rally car they wanted. Abandoned Engineering takes the 2am slot with a look at Fort Amador in Panama, and just over three hours of teleshopping fill the schedule from 3am.

Two further Abandoned Engineering episodes pick things up from 6:10am, one at a decaying New Jersey jail and another at a Polish castle rumoured to sit above a tunnel network built around wartime stories of hidden Nazi gold. Bangers & Cash: Restoring Classics takes over from 8am for a back-to-back pair: a rare surviving Hillman GT first, then what the team call their biggest restoration yet, a Series 1 Land Rover.

Secret Nazi Bases and The World at War share the late morning from 10am, a bunker network under the Hague followed by Laurence Olivier’s account of France’s collapse in 1940. Antiques Roadshow’s visits to Exeter Cathedral and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art fill the top of the afternoon from midday, then Bangers & Cash proper returns at 2pm, Dave chasing down a pair of rare Fiats and a Corrado before Derek gets talked into hauling out an old Morris that looks like it’s holding the garage roof up. Both Secret Nazi Bases and The World at War repeat at 4pm and 5pm ahead of the evening.

Yesterday tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

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

Antiques Roadshow — Yesterday, 6pm

A rerun of the lunchtime visit to Exeter Cathedral opens the evening, the valuation team working through pieces that include artwork by the sculptor Elisabeth Frink. It’s the same outing that aired at midday, shifted into the early-evening slot for anyone catching up after work.

Blue Planet — Yesterday, 7pm

Yesterday dips into the archive for the opening episode of the original Blue Planet, David Attenborough’s tour of life beneath the ocean’s surface. First shown back in 2001, it still holds up well against a couple of decades of nature documentaries that followed in its wake.

Canal Boat Diaries — Yesterday, 8pm to 9:30pm

Robbie Cumming’s waterways series takes over the heart of the evening with four legs back to back. The 8pm episode finishes off a journey into Liverpool Docks, engine trouble and all, before the 8:30pm instalment starts a fresh stretch along the Shropshire Union Canal. The 9pm and 9:30pm legs carry on through Staffordshire and down onto the River Severn, ending with an unplanned dip at a lock flight in Worcestershire. It’s the single biggest block Yesterday hands over to one programme on a weeknight.

Bangers & Cash — Yesterday, 10pm and 11pm

The Mathewsons close out the night with a repeat of the double bill that filled the 2pm and 3pm slots earlier in the day, Dave’s rare Fiats and Corrado followed by Derek’s awkward Morris removal. Old material rather than new, but the family auction house remains one of the channel’s most reliable draws whenever it airs.

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?

An Antiques Roadshow repeat opens the evening at 6pm, then the original Blue Planet takes the 7pm slot. Four Canal Boat Diaries episodes run back to back from 8pm to 9:30pm, and a Bangers & Cash double bill closes out the schedule at 10pm and 11pm.

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.

Tonight leans harder on natural history and canals than most weeknights: an Antiques Roadshow repeat and a rare outing for the original Blue Planet ahead of four straight Canal Boat Diaries legs, with the Mathewsons closing out the night rather than opening it. Nothing in the line-up is new, but it’s a fair sample of what the channel does well outside its war documentaries.

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