THE Easter weekend used to promise at least a few film premieres and one-off specials to mark it out from the rest of the year.

Normal service would be suspended from Good Friday to Easter Monday in favour of festive viewing but this seems to have been all but shelved by a lot of the channels.

The BBC doesn’t seem to have even slightly altered its listings from its normal daytime fare today and neither does ITV.

And this, of course, is fine as I am sure a lot of people are going to have better things to do that sit around watching television over the long weekend.

It is probably a symptom of 24 hour, demand television meaning the days of waiting excitedly for a major film to finally reach television screens are long gone.

But I’m slightly nostalgic for those days.

I still remember the level of anticipation when Flash Gordon was being shown for the first time on television one Christmas.

And I when I have got a day off work and I’m pottering about with the television on in the background, I quite like to have the odd family film replacing Dickinson’s Real Deal or Tipping Point.

It does look like there will be a few special programmes although the jury is still out for me on whether Rowan Atkinson is going to make a decent enough Maigret in ITV’s re-make.

Is this really the best they can do for Easter Weekend ?

But then this is a channel that has recently given us hypnotism game show You’re Back in the Room.

My previous respect for Philip Schofield has taken a serious nose-dive since I saw he was hosting this odd mish-mash of ritual humiliation disguised as entertainment.

I admit, I have only watched a few brief clips because when I have tried to watch it I have felt so embarrassed for everyone involved I had to turn over.