The decline of Love Island?

Originally published on 23 August on O2’s Workplace

Any Love Island fans out there?

It’s the live final tonight and the BBC published an interesting article delving into whether the show has lost its appeal this year.

The stats:

• a decline in viewers (drop from 6m episode average to 3m)
• the most-watched digital channel programme of the year so far for 16–34 year olds
• 53% decline on social noise
• 13% drop in media coverage about this years series
• 25K Ofcom complaints for Faye and Teddy’s argument

Were heads turned by Euro 2020 and Wimbledon, or is it overall losing its popularity?

Some observations are that its novelty value has waned and it risks becoming a victim of its own success — the impact of which is also affecting casting. “Now the contestants are mostly social media influencers, so there’s more cynicism”.

There’s also debate about mental health and whilst ITV have published comprehensive duty of care protocols, there’s a sense “It becomes easy to feel a bit uncomfortable watching people’s emotions being manipulated.” There were 16,900 negative tweets about the islanders on one night alone.

Love Island teamed up with nine official partners this year, making it one of the most commercialised shows on British television and earning the broadcaster £12m before this year’s series even started. This includes Boots, who became the first official ‘Feel Good’ partner and exclusive beauty partner, with the launch of Shoppable TV, enabling viewers to search and shop for program products from the comfort of their sofa.

Overall, it seems that Love Island is past its prime, but don’t expect it to leave TV screens anytime soon! I’m not a viewer myself, but it sounds like it could do with a reinvention to keep the format fresh and more positive, also to avoid going the way of X Factor which eventually became stale and tailed off.

Enjoy the final if you’re watching and interested to hear thoughts from fans!