Freeview Gets New 5 Drama Channel As 5Select Is Axed

5 is launching a new free TV channel next month. 5Drama goes live on October 21 across Freeview, Freesat, Freely and Sky, replacing 5Select, which closes to make room for it.

As the name suggests, it’s drama all day: 5’s own UK series like All Creatures Great and Small and The Madame Blanc Mysteries, American boxsets like Gilmore Girls, and Australian drama every night.

Soon after launch, it will also start showing Home and Away from the very first episode, all the way back in 1988.

It’s getting a better spot in the guide, too. Instead of simply slotting into 5Select’s place, 5Drama swaps positions with its sister channel 5Action, which puts it on Freeview channel 33.

“Award winning drama is increasingly at the heart of what 5 offers viewers, so it’s the right time to give it a dedicated home,” said Reemah Sakaan, President of 5.

Where To Find 5Drama

5Drama will be available on all the main free TV platforms: Freeview (through an aerial), Freesat (through a satellite dish) and Freely, the newer broadband-based platform from the same people behind Freeview and Freesat. It’s also on Sky and the other platforms that carry the public broadcaster channels.

From October 21, you’ll find it on:

• Freeview channel 33
• Freesat channel 132
• Freely channel 26
• Sky channel 150
• Sky Stream and Sky Glass channel 165 (as 5Drama HD)

These are all 5Action’s current numbers. 5Action isn’t going anywhere, though – it simply moves into 5Select’s old slot, which on Freeview is channel 46.

So if you’re used to finding 5Action on 33, whether for Police Interceptors, Traffic Cops or the late Sunday night NFL game (when the channel becomes 5NFL for the evening), you’ll need to scroll a bit further from October 21.

As usual with Freeview changes, some devices may need a retune before the new line-up shows up correctly, while others will do it automatically.

What’s On 5Drama

5 has been putting a lot more into original drama over the past few years. Last year, it promised more than 100 hours of original UK drama, the most in the channel’s history, and 5Drama is essentially a dedicated home for all of it.

The line-up includes All Creatures Great and Small, The Madame Blanc Mysteries and The Hardacres, along with detective dramas Ellis and Dalgliesh.

There will also be boxsets from 5’s streaming service, including Gilmore Girls, A Million Little Things and Waterloo Road.

So yes – many of these titles are dramas we’ve already seen on 5’s channels – but now they’ll have a dedicated channel named after their genre.

Here’s how 5 says a typical day will look:

• Weekday afternoons: nostalgic US drama, building up to more recent boxset hits before the evening
• 7pm and 8pm: 5 “family favourites”
• 9pm: classic UK drama
• 10pm: a second chance to catch some of 5’s biggest dramas, such as The Cuckoo, The Catch, Cold Call, The House Across the Street, The Au Pair, Number One Fan, The Rumour and The Fortune
• Late night: a double bill of Australian drama to close each day
• Saturdays: “super sleuths”, from Jessica Fletcher (Murder, She Wrote) to Inspector Dalgliesh
• Sundays: UK drama marathons

The 10pm slot is probably the most useful one if you missed 5’s big multi-part dramas the first time round, and didn’t get round to streaming them either.

Home And Away, From The Very Beginning

Soon after launch, 5Drama will start airing Home and Away from its first episode, taking viewers back to Summer Bay in 1988.

That means the original Fletcher family, Tom and Pippa and their foster children, and much younger versions of Sally Fletcher and Alf Stewart.

Home and Away fans may remember the last time a Freeview channel tried this. In January 2024, That’s TV 2 launched promising the early episodes to mark the show’s 35th anniversary, only to drop them after about two weeks, with no plans to bring them back. Fans were not happy.

This time it’s 5 doing it, and 5 has been Home and Away‘s UK home for more than two decades. It’s pitching the run as a way to relive the show from the start and follow the storylines through, so hopefully Summer Bay sticks around longer this time.

5 hasn’t yet given an exact start date for the classic episodes.

Goodbye, 5Select

5Select was the Channel 5 family’s “best of” channel, mostly showing documentaries and factual programmes from across 5’s channels, such as Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild, GPs: Behind Closed Doors and The Yorkshire Vet Casebook.

It was never the easiest channel to describe, and on Freeview it’s only been available on HD-capable devices since a technical change in 2021. A channel called 5Drama is a lot harder to misunderstand.

5’s factual shows aren’t disappearing, either. As well as airing on the main 5 channel, several of the biggest already have their own dedicated streaming channels, and 5 now has a YouTube channel just for its documentaries.

5’s Growing Family Of Channels

5Drama joins 5, 5Action, 5Star and 5USA in 5’s line-up of traditional TV channels, but that’s only part of the picture now.

When Channel 5 and My5 merged into a single “5” brand in March 2025, the broadcaster also launched a set of free, ad-supported streaming channels, each built around a particular genre or show.

In July, 11 of them arrived on Freely, including 5Cops, 5Police Interceptors, 5Crime, 5A&E, 5Medical, 5Yorkshire Vet, 5History, 5Movies and a dedicated Milkshake! channel. They’re all also available on 5’s own streaming service.

5 is also expanding on YouTube, where it has added 5Docs, a channel for its factual output, with travel from Michael Palin, history from Dan Snow and nature from Steve Backshall, and new episodes added every week.

It joins 5’s other YouTube channels, including the recently launched 5Sport, 5 News, Jeremy Vine & Daytime on 5, and Milkshake!, as well as live NFL games on the main 5 YouTube channel.

Sakaan said the changes are “about sharpening our channels and giving viewers a clear offer wherever they’re watching – on linear, 5Streaming, Freely or YouTube.”

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