Long Live the New Flesh?
As ITV’s troubled reality show Love Island prepares to return
With the return of Love Island for a seventh run, one wonders what has to happen for ITV to consider cancelling the money-spinning ratings winner.
No less than nine official brand partners (including returning headline sponsor Just Eat) are supporting Love Island to the tune of more than £5m each year.
But, with a body count currently standing at four deaths allegedly related to the show (including presenter Caroline Flack) a cynical observer may think that the likes of Simplicity Cremations or Dignity Funerals would be more appropriate sponsors.
Or perhaps The Samaritans.
To some, Love Island has begun to resemble the 2020 Blumhouse horror remake of Fantasy Island, rather than the beloved 70s/80s primetime US TV series.
Although it must be noted that Mr Roarke (Ricardo ‘Khaaaaan!’ Montalban) did have a few brushes with El Diablo (played by Roddy McDowall) a couple of times in the original series.
Nonetheless, as ITV is a commercial operation in the midst of an ad revenue crisis caused by the global pandemic, the network needs to keep its collective financial head above water. And considering ITV’s long-running Jeremy Kyle Show and, further back, commissioning (and dumping) of programmes such as the ‘sick and degrading’ Man vs Beast, taste and discernment have on occasion been qualities sadly lacking at the broadcaster.
The impression of a blithe and tin-eared approach to British society at large has been reinforced by the recent remarks of ITV commissioner Amanda Stavri, who claimed: “In terms of gay Islanders, I think the main challenge is regarding the format of Love Island, there’s a sort of logistical difficulty, because although Islanders don’t have to be 100% straight, the format must sort of give [them] an equal choice when coupling up.”
Outstanding.
Personally, I’d advise Amanda to ask for her money back from ITV’s mandatory media training course.
These of course echo the previous remarks of ITV Digital Channels Grand Poobah Paul Mortimer, who put his foot in it regarding gay LI contestants in 2017:
“The format doesn’t really allow it. If you’re familiar with the programme [burn], it’s about coupling and recoupling. To complicate it with same-sex relationships is to take something away from the format. I know Richard said, maybe with tongue-in-cheek, that we might do a gay version one day.”
Paul also stepped on a rake regarding those poor souls blessed with less than stellar good looks/hot bods, witness his comments a year later: “We cast sexy people, we’re a sexy channel and those people by the way, they work quite hard, there’s a gym, we show people working out. There’s also another conversation going on about childhood obesity. If you want to look like the guys on Love Island you have to work out.”
No uggos allowed, in other words.
Recalling Hugo Drax’s (Michael Lonsdale) dream of a perfect world in Moonraker (1979), one in which his high standards of physical perfection would exclude both henchman Jaws and his new lady friend, pigtailed space-technician Dolly.
Master Mortimer another candidate for a media training course refund methinks. Presumably, Paul has been told to zip it this time around, which makes Stavris’s remarks all the more unfortunate.
Paul’s boss, the shy and retiring ITV Director of Television Kevin Lygo, also weighed in on the casting of Love Island with yet another of his attempts at Wildean wit, saying:
“There are quite enough gay people on television”.
The kind of razor-sharp quip that BBC1 obviously took a shine to when they commissioned Lygo’s ‘comedy-drama’ Walter in 2014 (no, not 1974, although you may think so from the attached clip). Walter just happened to co-star Kev’s daughter Madison Lygo, which, judging by the critical reception the show received (‘Walter is the worst thing I've seen this year’ according to The Herald) was something of a double-edged sword.
Love Island will no doubt bring in the attractive demographics that advertisers covet, but ITV2 will have to be careful not to kill the Golden Goose by overworking the show and cramming more series or episodes into each year.
ITV have form with previous self-defeating dependence on a small number of hit shows: witness the decline of the pre-revival Who Wants to be a Millionaire and The X-Factor.
A stark example of this was the yearly decline in ITV share by year as the channel increasingly relied on weekly episodes of the Millionaire former ratings juggernaut from the Autumn of 2000:
1999: 31.2%
2000: 29.3%
2001: 26.7%
2002: 24.1%
This is a particular red flag for ITV2, whose attempts to replicate the success of Love Island have tended to be ratings and critical flops (remember Bromans, Evil Monkeys, Survival of the Fittest, Chris & Kem, Singletown etc?), rendering the channel something of a one trick pony.
Another Love Island-related tragedy and its then (surely) inevitable cancellation would be potentially ruinous for ITV2, so we should sincerely hope that both the pre and after care of contestants on the latest run are up to scratch this time.
