Sunday night TV has, for as long as I can remember, been an entertainment desert for anyone born after the release of the White Album. A relentless diet of hymns, antiques, bumbling vicars and period frocks, it's been a conspiracy to bore the nation, or at least half of it, into a state of melancholic resignation at the end of another weekend.
I've always wondered, for years now and often out of sheer frustration whilst flicking across channels, why none of the broadcasters, despite their ferocious competition for viewers elsewhere in the week, hadn't taken the initiative and tried something different on a Sunday evening. It seemed like such an easy win. You have a near-captive audience who want to stay in and sedate themselves in preparation for the start of another work week, including the much sought-after younger demographic, shagged out from partying the previous two nights. And if you move first, you have an enormous advantage over the almost uniform tedium across the schedule. Why hadn't anyone gone for it? When I worked at Channel Five I used to ask this question of everyone, including schedulers. I never found a satisfactory answer. It was just the way things were, apparently.
Finally, ITV has taken a look at this open goal, and decided to boot the ball into it:
Traditionally an evening for the small-screen equivalent of a warm bath, ITV's decision to broadcast its hour-long X Factor results show on Sundays has brought it massive ratings.. "It was waiting to be done. I'm not surprised that there's a large audience on a Sunday night – people don't go out," said the ITV director of television, Peter Fincham.
And that, folks, is why TV execs get paid the big bucks.
