James R | On 31, Jul 2018

Love Island Season 4 reached its finale last night with a record-breaking audience tuning in to watch and stream the end of the dating reality series.

A massive 3.6 million viewers watched the final episode of the eight-week contest, ITV2’s biggest audience ever and up on last year’s final by 1 million viewers. It was the most watched programme in its slot across all channels and the most watched programme for 16-34s, with 1.6 million 16-34 viewers.

The final boasted a further 1.9 million simulcast requests on ITV Hub. Indeed, digital audiences have become a huge part of the series’ success. According to data from BARB, Love Island was second most popular on-demand programme in the whole of 2017 and the number one most live-streamed TV show of the year.

Building on that success, Love Island Season 4 has broken records across its run, averaging 2.7 million viewers in the overnight TV ratings (up 1 million viewers year on year), and is currently averaging 4 million viewers in terms of consolidated TV ratings, up by 1.5 million viewers on Series 3. The season average is an impressive 5 million viewers per episode, across TV and non-TV (consolidated TV ratings and viewing via ITV Hub).

The figures this series mean that Love Island is the most watched programme on a digital channel ever amongst 16-34s, and has attracted the biggest 16-34 audiences on TV this year, outside of World Cup matches.

ITV2 has been the third biggest channel for 16-34s across June and July ahead of Channel 4, E4, Channel 5 and BBC Two. The channel has had its four biggest days ever in terms of 16-34 share across Love Island’s run, with yesterday recording ITV2’s biggest ever day in terms of 16-34 share, with a 17.8% share of 16-34 viewing across the day.

Paul Mortimer, ITV’s Head of Digital Channels and Acquisitions, says: “Love Island was once again the must-see show of the summer. At ITV2, we were thrilled with the level of younger viewer engagement to the extent that it broke all our previous audience records and is now firmly established as the biggest ever series in the multi-channel space.”

For a full list of winners and runners-up from the season, click here.

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