Following many concerns with the most recent series, ITV head Kevin Lygo has claimed Love Island isn’t going anywhere. Even though the summer reality show’s excitement was at an all-time high after skipping the 2020 season, viewership numbers plummeted early this year and varied throughout the season.
There were 2.8 million viewers for this week’s finale on ITV2, which is 430,000 more than the winter 2020 finale. However, love Island’s viewership ratings aren’t alarming for ITV, Lygo said during an appearance at the Edinburgh Television Festival (via Deadline).
He argued that new programmes, which are hugely popular, tend to follow a similar trend. But, on catch-up, it’s one of the best-performing series in history.” No one would have thought that you could create a show that plays every night at 9 pm for eight weeks and keep viewers, especially young people, who are hard to come by these days?”
“There’s still a long way to go.” To keep it as fresh as possible, producers are challenged to make some small tweaks. However, there was no drama this time around, and when there were stressful sequences, some viewers found them hard to watch.
Ofcom received many complaints over Faye Winter and Teddy Soares’ bitter feud earlier this year.
“The problem with complaints these days is there’s a new most complained-about show every week,” Lygo added. After Ashley in Britain’s Got Talent, he went on to win a BAFTA, then Piers stormed off [Good Morning Britain], and now it’s Love Island, the most complained-about reality show. In today’s world, it’s quite easy to find reasons to complain.
“Take things at face value, and you’ll be OK. Is there anything they’re complaining about? Is it possible we went too far? Taking one instance and thinking it’s too much is easy, but it’s a longer-term issue that we should be concerned about.”
For the duration of the programme and afterwards, the ITV executive said, his staff will continue to put precautions for Love Island contestants. As well as being available to watch via ITV Hub, episodes of Love Island are also available to BritBox customers as soon as they are aired on ITV2.
