Love Island to launch in three new countries

Versions of the hit dating show Love Island will be made in Denmark, Finland and Norway, ITV Studios has announced.

The commissions take the number of countries in which the show is being produced to seven.

It has already proved to be a hit in Australia and Germany, as well as its native UK, and is launching in Sweden this year.

TV3 has ordered the show, which sees single men and women live together in a villa and couple up in the hope of finding love and winning a cash prize,  in both Denmark and Norway, while MTV3 has commissioned it in Finland. All three series will air in 2018.

The UK’s fourth series launched earlier this week to bumper ratings and gave ITV2 its biggest overnight viewing figures since records began, ITV has said.

The episode, which aired from 9pm until 10.35pm on Monday, was watched by an average of 2.9 million viewers with a peak of 3.4 million, according to overnight ratings.

This is more than double the launch episode for last year’s series of the reality dating programme, which had an average of 1.3 million viewers.

The episode surpassed ITV2’s previous overnight rating record holder – the finale of the Love Island 2017 series, which drew an average of 2.6 million viewers.

ITV has also said the broadcast was the highest-rated programme at 9pm across all channels, and won its time slot with a 16.4% audience share.

Love Island Australia launched last month and within 24 hours of airing, episode one gave the network’s catch-up service 9Now the biggest ratings for an Australian reality TV show ever.

Love Island Sweden will launch on TV4 while Love Island Germany will return later in the year for a second series, after series one was the most streamed RTL2 format ever on TV Now.

Mike Beale, managing director for the Nordics and ITV Studios global creative network said: “From winning a Bafta and breaking viewing records in the UK to a hugely successful launch in Australia and winning these three new commissions, it’s been a brilliant few weeks for the format.

“We have already seen that it works equally well across linear, digital and catch-up platforms and we are very excited to roll the show out across the Nordics as a result.

“With a version of Love Island on somewhere around the world every single day between now and Christmas, we’ll look to build on the incredible momentum we have right now by continuing to grow the show internationally.”