While Love Island is the most successful reality show of 2018 and ITV2s most successful show of all time, its been dogged with rumours of being fixed and accusations of producers staging events within the show.
Jack Fowler and Georgia Steel's kiss was famously filmed twice and Samira and Frankie's relationship was completely absent from our screens which led viewers to believe their relationship was non-existent.
Speaking at the Edinburgh TV Festival, ITV head of digital channels Paul Mortimer had this to say:
We’re not making [Big Brother], we don’t need to create that show – [we’re creating] a bigger, better more flexible show, we have producers, who happen to be sometimes in the villa…We have to feed [the islanders], that’s where some of the criticism started to emerge because the show is now so successful, people were looking to create stories about Love Island. It’s not fakery at all.
Angela Jain, Director of ITV Studios Entertainment, added that producers start with a blank sheet of paper everyday and look at the audience feedback and use that to feed into what they think will do well "but being completely flexible as producers to what is happening in the villa and what people are talking about in the real world. That flexibility is part of its success."
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It still remains unclear if contestants are told about what is happening in the outside world and if the information they are fed dictates the reactions of the audience. The audience was particularly unhappy when producers sent Dani a video of Jack reaction to seeing his ex-girlfriend arriving in the Casa Amora villa and sent thousands of complaints to TV watchdogs Ofcom.
Applications for the 2019 series are now open.
