ITV2's decision (we wouldn't call it a gamble) to commission a Winter Love Island has paid off, since a massive 2.5 million people tuned in to watch the debut episode last night (January 12).
But while those numbers are impressive, it's a big drop from the 3.4 million who watched the premiere episode of last year's summer series (via Broadcast).
That translates to 45% of the 16-24 audience and 42% of 25-34s, compared to last year's 60% and 58%, respectively.
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Do people just associate the show with the summer? Are people refusing to watch without Caroline Flack hosting? Did the ITV Hub crashing in the first five minutes cause people to give up watching it on broadcast TV? Or are people just getting sick of the show in general? We'll see how the whole series pans out.
On the other channels at the time, ITV won the battle with 5.5 million for Vera's return, BBC One had 3.8 million for The Trial of Christine Keeler, while Channel 4 and BBC 2 had 1.5 million and 1.4 million respectively for SAS: Who Dares Wins and Louis Theroux: Selling Sex. Meanwhile, Channel 5... exists.
Winter 2020 Love Island Fashion
Last night's episode featured Laura Whitmore making her generally well-received debut, while one Islander made an incredibly stupid comment that will surely rank among the show's dumbest ever.
Love Island airs nightly on ITV2 from 9pm.
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Joe Anderton is a freelance news writer at Digital Spy, having worked there since 2016. In his time, he's covered a host of live events and interviewed celebrities big and small. A big fan of TV and movies both mainstream and obscure, Joe also enjoys video games and in particular PlayStation. Joe currently does not use Twitter, but he only ever used it to tell people to watch the film Help! I'm a Fish.
