Is the Sun Still Shining for Love Island?

Is the Sun Still Shining for Love Island?

Promotional Image of Maya Jama as the new host of the ITV2 series.
SOURCE: James Hilder | ITV

The ratings powerhouse returned for its latest winter series, seeing ten hopefuls jet off to South Africa for the freshest instalment in the franchise. With some awkward interactions, some eye-widening rejections, and some light shade already, the show is here doing what it's known for. However, some criticism is breaking through those sun-exposed cracks...Is the format becoming a little tired? Could the show do with some revitalisation? Should it stick to its usual summer edition? Stay tuned to find out what the general public thinks about this brand new instalment, and just how many people tuned in to see Maya Jama take the hosting reigns. 

According to data published by Digital i on Twitter 1.43 million people tuned in to this series opener, marking series 9 as the lowest overnight launch since series 3. It is also a drop of over 1m from the launch of the first winter version of the show. Data thanks to overnight data reported by Super TV on Twitter. Although, as many fans may know, viewing for Love Island isn't exactly straight-forward. With such a young audience, catch-up and platform viewing tends to be immense. Let's take a look back at some figures from last series where Ekin-Su & Davide took the crown. The series finale saw an audience of 4.10m, rising from an overnight audience of 2.82m (a 1.28m rise). That extra 1.2m viewers was actually one of the lower figures the series saw when it came to catch-up. 

It's also quite important to consider that viewing was quite low across the board on Monday night, and as it was what is known as the most depressing day of the year, perhaps casual TV viewers just weren't wanting to see people sunning it and falling in love?! 'Blue Monday' struck us all!

Looking back, in the week 11-17 July, the show topped the charts with one episode garnering up 5.06m viewers (the previous week seeing a high of 5.3m), and seeing a timeshift of 2.33m from its 2.7m overnight audience. These timeshifts would be impressive regardless of the beginning and ending audience, so the current show's lower figure does not mean that the show is heading to its demise. By the logic of previous series, we could see the launch episode finalising at around 3.7m. In the current viewing climate, that could be enough to put the show comfortably in the top 50 shows across all channels. For ITV2 to break into this 50 is a huge achievement, so even with lower figures, it's still far superior to the figures that ITV2 is accustomed to.

It's also worth noting that Love Island makes huge feats within the 16-34 age demographic. According to Thinkbox.tv, highs of 75% of the demo were tuned into the show (commercial TV viewers only). At the same time, few shows were even managing to reach half the figures of Love Island. We will see how the show performs this time around, although I expect it to achieve similar highs. Even if it doesn't, however, to be half as successful will still be a notable success for ITV2. On top of that, catch-up on platforms such as phones, tablets and PC's are also usually far superior to any other show, sometimes clocking up to 1m and more on those formats alone. Viewing habits for the show's target audience are ultimately very varied, so overnight data is usually not too concerning.

A RatingsUK Chart exploring the data mentioned above from June 2022. 
SOURCE: Thinkbox.tv

Moving away from overnight figures, let's take a look at how the show has performed according to official data from BARB. The first series back in 2015 never even managed to break the 1m mark, and the launch only reached 640k viewers, so the latest audiences are definitely not the worst. Figures slowly began to rise and the second run launched with 1.21m viewers before the huge highs of later series began to hit like Series 5's 5.90m.

Looking at the chart below though, there's such a steep incline that it seems impossible for the show to slip back to its quiet roots at this point. Since its peak, it also seems to be achieving some more stable and predictable ratings, so why would this next series be different? Perhaps the quick turnaround will affect it in the long-run? Perhaps the catch-up viewing will be stronger? We'll have to wait until the series finishes to get a better idea on the matter. 

Chart to show the official 7-day ratings for each launch/finale of every series.
SOURCE: BARB

So, despite those lower figures, all is not lost for the series when it comes to viewing figures. With its ever-powerful online following, and some substantial rises on the usual averages for ITV2, these figures are not of too much concern just yet, and they shouldn't be because the series is still performing rather consistently. It is also worth noticing that the final show has done worse than the launch since the Series 5 peak, so consistency would suggest that this run (series 9) will be no different, and we could see a difference of a million in these figures. Perhaps this opening overnight rating will be the highest we get? 

If this is to be the case, and we do end up with the usual final figure being close to 4m, we should see a drop-off as the series plays out to hit a final audience of around 3m. However these are all just educated guesses, and I aim to be disproved.

Beyond that, it comes to public & critic perception. As to be expected for a reality series like this, feedback is always mixed, but when will it start to become detrimental? Has it already? Critics from the papers weren't too convinced by the new series. The Telegraph gave the show a pretty scathing review, leaving it just one star out of five. The Independent went a little easier on the reality show, but gave most of their positive critique to Maya Jama in which they name a 'true star'. The Jama appreciation seems quite universal with many viewers complementing her in the role as host. The reviewer goes on to mention "Jama's magic", but the series couldn't be saved even with her titillating talents in charge. Away from the critics and their uneasy views, how did all of you take it? Well... It didn't seem especially positive there either. For any of you who saw, I asked my readers to vote on how they viewed the episode on Twitter (@Ratings_UK). 

Unfortunately, perception was quite negative with the majority of voters rating the show as 'okay' or 'bad'. It is fair to say that only around 145 votes were registered, so won't be an accurate depiction of the complete picture, but it's still not the most idyllic outcome for a poll that built up some traffic for the very short period it run for.  

Chart to show the distribution of votes on the Ratings UK Twitter poll.

The majority of voters rated the series opener as 'bad' - the lowest possible rank on the 4-answer poll. It took up almost 50% of the vote, and the average answer was calculated to be just okay (1.97/4 for the mathematical side showing a weighted distribution to the poorer options). Some of the comments on the poll were quite critical of the series too. One user (@Mar1eMT) suggested that the series had "had its day." By the ninth series, now at two seasons a year, could that be the case? With such a long-running show, perhaps people are tiring of the commitment to it? What do you think of the show and its return? What keeps drawing you back to watch that stunning villa each year? There's still a big audience for the show, so despite these comments, not all is bad, right?!

One major question you could take is this: Are poorer opinions indicative as to the show's performance in viewing? The answer at the moment isn't concrete. I guess we will see as the days pass, couples form and drama starts building?! The second episode took a slight dip in viewership to 1.29m according to Super TV. This isn't too bad a drop, decreasing only 9.8% from the launch. With these stable figures, it won't be considered a poor performance, but priority may end laying with the summer series when viewers are more likely to lap up the summer romances and stunning Island views whilst sat at home. Perhaps the show just needs some spicing up to bring in the viewers?

Love Island will continue tonight and most nights for the next few weeks on ITV2 at 9PM. Will you be watching the show progress? If you wish to discuss your thoughts on the series, and how it's progressing, feel free! If you wish to talk about the ratings and figures explored here, drop a comment, contact me in the contact box, or reply on the posts dedicated to this. 

Thank you for reading!

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