Love Island All Stars final attracts 1 million viewers

Did Love Island All Stars bring the sparkle back to the show? Viewing figures for its grand final suggest not.

Overnight numbers from ratings body Barb showed that just over 1 million people watched Monday’s conclusion of the spin-off series.

ITV said its own figures, which include streaming service ITVX, showed 1.3 million had tuned in.

It said this was in line with figures for last year’s winter final.

Rather than a group of unknowns, ITV convinced former contestants to come back to the villa for its latest take on the format.

Just before the new series began, returning islander Georgia Harrison told BBC Newsbeat that All Stars would be “absolute TV Gold”.

She was joined in the villa by fan favourites including Kaz Kamwi, Liberty Poole, Georgia Steel, Hannah Elizabeth and Anton Danyluk.

While the islanders claimed they were in there to find love, they were also reportedly paid far more than those entering the villa for the first time.

And, in a first for Love Island, the opening episode of All Stars was shown simultaneously on ITV1 and ITV2 – but only ITV2 aired the final.

Molly Smith, from series six, and Tom Clare, from series nine, were eventually crowned winners in South Africa.

Love Island’s first series – aired in 2015 – was a modest success, with contestants Jon Clark and Hannah Elizabeth getting engaged in the final.

But it was from 2017 that the show became a cultural phenomenon.

Series five, aired in 2019, broke the show’s viewing records with 6 million tuning in, and that year’s final remains the most watched ever.

Winner Amber Gill and contestants including Molly-Mae Hague and Maura Higgins went on to become household names.

But ratings have been dropping since, with the 2023 series opener watched by 1.3 million viewers.

The show’s had to make big changes around its duty of care towards contestants over the years, after two ex-islanders took their own lives.