Love Island falters as ITV’s hit show struggles
Leasa Doran, Broadcast Trading Executive
Given the success of the Summer series of Love Island, ITV couldn’t help but take another bite of the cherry by introducing a Winter edition – but are they pushing their luck, or is the gamble paying off?
A series of singletons have once again ditched their day jobs to find love in the show’s first outing to South Africa, with their adventures in ‘copping off’ and ‘cracking on’ documented six nights a week on ITV2. Flack has been replaced by Whitmore and Majorca has been replaced by Cape Town.
First indications suggest that the gamble isn’t paying off – the series is now two weeks in and so far, the viewing figures are down vs the summer series.
The lunch episode aired on the 12th January and adult share of viewing was down 6.3% (down 675,000) vs the first summer episode. This figure was substantially worse for younger audiences with 16-24 share down -15.5%, a loss of 444,000 on the first episode of the summer series.
Just seen an article reg #LoveIsland that due to Laura taking over its lost 800,000 viewers. No. It's because the funny bits arent shown, no one is real and it shows the same convo over and over. "So who you liking then" .. still can't stop watching though
— Char ❁ (@charculverx) January 27, 2020
Unfortunately, as the days have progressed the figures haven’t improved. The consolidated figures for 18th January delivered an adult viewing share of 4.6% (915,000) down -2.8% vs the same episode in the Summer. Adults 16-34 followed the same pattern and delivered 16.8% share, again down vs the Summer episode.
Sunday night’s episode saw luckless Siannise confront Rebecca after the fall-out of the re-coupling, and Sophie and Connor were revealed as the vulnerable pair. Who would be sent home, Sophie or Connor?
Unfortunately, it looks like very few people cared as the overnight viewing figures against all audiences were down vs the same episode in the summer. However, it looks like some of the 840,00 adults 16-34 were interested enough to vote as Connor “teeth” Druman became the third contestant to be dumped.
😱 Connor has been dumped from the villa #LoveIsland pic.twitter.com/B1DKUXCbSc
— Love Island (@LoveIsland) January 27, 2020
So far, it looks like the viewers aren’t as bothered about what happens in the Villa in Cape Town as they have been about the antics in Majorca. ITV will be hoping that the figures start to pick-up as the tensions rise but I somehow doubt it.
It’s worth noting that viewing in the first quarter is vastly different from the summer and, although viewing to the show is down vs the summer shows, what else have ITV got that they can put in it’s place that will attract 16-34s?
