Are people watching winter Love Island? I asked the fans.
For the first time ever, popular dating reality show Love Island has got a winter season. The announcement in June last year was met with a mix of excitement and confusion, as the format relies on “a summer of love” with impossibly fit, topless contestants trying to find a partner in a remote luxury villa. Three weeks in, how has it been holding up?
To start, the show premiered with a consolidated rating of 4.8 million viewers, which is one-million short from the record-breaking first episode of last season. Broadcast reported that despite its slightly lower ratings this year, Love Island is bringing the 16–34-year-old demographic into watching ITV2. Beyond that, an analysis revealed that Channel 4 and BBC1’s audience share for this group at 9pm plummeted by around 50% upon the start of the dating show’s winter season.
I surveyed 300 viewers of the show to find out what they thought about the new winter season. My research showed an increase in viewership year-on-year with a slight dip for the winter season.
Despite opinion pieces such as this one which claims the season is just odd because it’s not set in a ski cabin (and to be honest, I had the same concern) when asked viewers of the show confirmed that their biggest reason for not watching was the lack of spare time during winter.
I also asked whether viewers thought a winter season was a necessity, to which 33.3% replied no. Notwithstanding, 97% said, three weeks in, they were still watching Love Island’s winter season.
So, Love Island Winter 2020 has not, by any means, flopped. However, it is crucial to not over-do reality shows, as many have been canceled in the past for offering too much. It is all about making an event out of them. And as long as Love Island keeps generating stories people want to watch, it’s going to stay for many more years to come.
