Another year, another hit run of dating competition show Love Island, the shiniest of shining stars in the programming genre loosely termed reality TV. This ratings magnet did the business again in its eighth series, with the finale watched by an average of 304,000 viewers on Virgin Media Two on Monday night, up 2 per cent on last year’s final, with a further 120,000 live streams on Virgin Media Player.
After generating 12 million on-demand streams across its 2021 series, more than a quarter of Virgin’s total streams for the year, the Love Island franchise has fared even better in 2022, delivering more than 13 million streams, Virgin Media Television said. Its climax, which saw Ekin-Su and Davide crowned winners on day 58, made Virgin Media Two the number-one channel in Ireland on Monday for 15- to 34-year-olds and 25- to 44-year-olds — demographics loved by advertisers.
For ITV, which makes and distributes the Mallorca-set tan-fest, this year’s run outperformed the 2021 series (though not the 2019 one) on ITV2, while also becoming the most-watched series ever on digital platform ITV Hub.
Such is ITV’s confidence in the brand that in early 2023 it will have a second go at a winter Love Island, filmed in South Africa, three years after its first attempt — meaning there will be not one but two Love Islands next year. At some point in 2023, ITV will also revive Big Brother, the once dominant format that previously ran on Channel 4 and then Channel 5, before being axed in 2018.
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For broadcasters such as ITV and by extension Virgin Media Television engaged in the perennial hunt for younger viewers, the aim is to make nightly reality shows a year-round revenue-boosting affair, not just an eight-week summer fling.
One detail about Big Brother released by ITV indicates that it is not committing too much, too soon, however. The 2023 series will last “up to six weeks”, it said. Mercifully, this is a great deal shorter than the typical length of earlier UK iterations of the show, which peaked — in duration, though not in quality — in 2007 with a 13-week (94 day) stint.
That run led to a mere 96 episodes. In 2008 and 2009, the 93-day seasons of Big Brother produced no fewer than 108 episodes — more than twice the 49 episodes in this year’s Love Island.
