ITV bosses have announced that 2023 is officially the 'year of love', as they announce two new series of Love Island, coming to ITV2 and ITVX in the new year.
As TV’s biggest show across 16-34 year olds, Love Island will kick start the New Year with a fresh batch of Islanders heading to South Africa on a quest for love and romance.
In the villa of their dreams, their stay in paradise will serve up everything from bombshell arrivals to hideaway hijinks. Meanwhile, Summer 2023 then sees the nation’s favourite dating show return to Mallorca for another eight-week run.
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The current series, airing across ITV2 and ITV Hub, launched to a consolidated 5 million viewers across all devices (including catch up across TV, mobile, PC and tablet) - up on 2021 by +0.2m, making it the highest launch since 2019. Consolidated data has confirmed that the Love Island launch is now officially the biggest programme of the year for the 16-34 year old demographic.
The launch episode has been streamed 7.5 million times and the series as a whole has been streamed 74 million times. Having once again dominated the national conversation, Love Island has spawned countless long term couplings, with seven babies (and another on the way for Jess and Dom) and four weddings across eight series.
Paul Mortimer, Director of Reality Commissioning and Controller, ITV2, said: “Love Island has once again proved itself to be the nation’s favourite talking point across the summer, and we’re always blown away by the show’s ongoing impact and talkability amongst our younger audience.
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"So, rather than just serving up a Summer of Love, we thought we’d make 2023 the Year of Love with two full series of the show.”
Mike Spencer, Executive Producer at Lifted Entertainment, added: “After eight brilliant series, we are excited to be serving up two helpings of love in 2023 by kicking off in January at a stunning new villa in South Africa.
"We can look forward to more romances, bromances and everything in between as we embark on another epic year of love.”
Scottish Love Island winner Paige Turley was delighted at the news, saying alongside boyfriend Finn Tapp: "Love Island enabled us to find love with someone that without the show, our paths would never have crossed. We both found everything that we’d asked for in a partner in each other and we now live together in Manchester (we’ve been here for almost two years).
"We’ve got a new amazing group of friends and literally couldn’t imagine life without each other.”
Love Island resumes on Thursday, June 23 at 9pm on ITV2. It is available for catch-up thereafter on the ITV Hub.
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