Since the beginning of time, Sunday night has been the night for families to get together, talk about how much they love each other, and then watch hours and hours of great TV shows. Sunday night is The Simpsons, The Walking Dead, Game Of Thrones, Silicon Valley, Veep, America’s Funniest Home Videos, Bob’s Burgers, and the various NASCAR races, football matches, and World Series playoffs that occasionally preempt them. Starz likes to do things differently, though. Rather than face the Sunday night onslaught, it has typically aired its most high-profile original shows on Saturday nights instead. After all, people who love TV are probably at home on Saturday nights anyway, so it might as well tap into the pool of viewers who are just watching a Jaws marathon on AMC or whatever weirdo anime thing is on Adult Swim that night.
However, according to The Hollywood Reporter, that’s going to change this summer. Beginning on July 17 with the premiere of the third season of Power, Starz’s original shows will move from Saturdays to Sundays, putting stuff like Outlander and Survivor’s Remorse head-to-head against the shows we mentioned above (though most/all of them won’t be airing new episodes this summer). Starz CEO Chris Albrecht says that the Saturday strategy has “worked so well” that he believes the shows will also “be able to stand up on the most watched night of the week.” Plus, as Albrecht notes, “Sundays are a prestige night,” so viewers might be more willing to pay attention to a Starz show on a Sunday than they would be otherwise.
As for Saturdays, Starz will now follow HBO’s lead and reserve the night for movie premieres.