Love Island UK crisis over 'lowest ratings yet' in series first as US version soars

Love Island's latest series only started earlier this month with a viewership of one million on the first day, but the ITV2 programme failed to keep fans interested as the numbers dwindled over the weeks. Four years ago, the series launch brought in 2.5 million viewers while the 2022 series had 2.4 million viewers.

By the next year, the first episode dropped to 1.3 million and last year's premiere had 1.7 million viewers. With this year's series, less and less people tuned into the dating competition. Excluding Unseen Bits, the first week of the new series averaged 855,000 viewers, much lower than 2024's numbers.

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The opening week averaged 144,000 for 16-24s. Many have been complaining about the series in recent years, with some complaining about it being "boring".

Former Love Island winner Amber Rose Gill even hit out at the current state of UK reality TV, claiming it’s become too “soft” and over-policed by viewers who get offended over everything.

In a fiery social media rant, the 2019 champ said the reason reality telly is “dead” is because people can’t say anything without backlash - calling out recent outrage over a Love Island contestant saying another girl was “too glamorous for a 9-5”.

Amber fumed: “I’ve just seen articles about a girl saying someone’s too glamorous for a 9-5 and everyone’s like, ‘You can’t say that!’ I need everyone to get several grips.”

She continued: “No wonder they come f**ing media trained, because God forbid you say anything out of line. I remember some of the s*** I said and trust me, I say worse in private!”

Meanwhile, a lot of Love Island fans have turned to the US version of the show. The American version even had Megan Thee Stallion as a guest for one of their challenges.

It was recently reported that series seven of the US show was the second most-watched streaming show on US television. From June 6 until June 12, the programme racked up 1.2 billion minutes viewed across nine available episodes.

Casa Amor is about to arrive with Big Brother star Zak Srakaew entering the Fiji villa in a first for the programme. He burst onto the scene two years ago but didn't last long after becoming the second housemate to get the boot.

He moved to Manchester from Thailand when he was a child and is in the States and after finding fame on the show two years ago, he is now hunting for love. There has already been plenty of drama so far and the UK audience are keen to know what's happening across the pond.

But they will have to wait to see Zak in action - Love Island USA is not currently available to watch in the UK, but it may air on ITVX and ITV2 in the future, with previous seasons of the reality show available.

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