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Love Island final breaks ratings record for ITV2 as talks begin for American version

Over half a million more people watched the series finale than the opening

Jack Shepherd
Tuesday 31 July 2018 06:05 EDT
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Dani and Jack announced winners of Love Island 2018

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Love Island has come to a record-breaking end.

An overnight audience of 3.6 million viewers, peaking at 4.1 million, watched Dani Dyer and Jack Fincham be crowned winners of the fourth series, taking home the £50,000 prize money.

Those figures are up on the series opening episode (2.9 million) and way above last year’s final (2.6 million), making the episode ITV2’s most-watched episode of television ever.

With such huge figures, other broadcasters have been hoping to get on the Love Island action. And while there’s already the Australian version, remakes are to begin rolling out in Germany and across Scandanavia also.

There has also been some development in the United States.The streaming service Hulu currently host the UK version of the series for American viewers and, although no specific viewing figures have been released, people are reportedly binging three episodes per session on average, consuming two hours a day.

As a result, Deadline reports that ITV America – who recently saw success with the Queer Eye reboot – are “on the verge” of selling an American remake to a distributor. The broadcaster had previously sold the show to MTV but the deal fell through thanks to a shake-up at MTV.

Mike Beale, who oversees the global roll out of ITV formats, told the publication: “For us, it’s about finding the right place. It’s very different offering to anything else America has done before, even in this dating environment. We talk about the key elements being the event, the stripped nature and multiple platforms so getting that right is important and that’s tricky. We’re definitely working on it.”

Following Dani and Jack’s conclusion, the reaction online has been huge, Danny Dyer reacting to his daughter’s victory with a celebratory Instagram post.

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