Love Island final ratings dip to lowest since series 2 as Kai and Sanam win by a landslide
Only 1.1 million people tuned in to see Kai Fagan and Sanam Harrinanan crowned the Love Island winners in this series.
This was the lowest for a show finale since series two of the show, and a huge drop from last year’s 3 million.
Love Island was also beaten on the night by The Last Of Us final on Sky Atlantic with 1.2 million.
Meanwhile, it has been revealed that Kai and Sanam won in a landslide, receiving a whopping 44 percent of the vote.
Ron Hall and Lana Jenkins got 30 percent of the vote, while Samie Elishi and Tom Clare got 24 percent.
Low: Only 1.1 million people tuned in to see Kai Fagan and Sanam Harrinanan crowned the Love Island winners this series
Drop: This was the lowest for a show finale since series two of the show, and a big drop from last year’s 3 million (last year’s winners shown)
However, Tanya Manhenga and Shaq Muhammad only got 2 percent of the final vote.
The winter series of Love Island drew around 1.2 million for the series opener, another drop from last year, which drew 2.4 million.
It comes after the stars of the villa are expected to feel a massive impact on their reach after the bosses banned the families of the 2023 Love Island cast from social media representing them while in the villa.
It will be a huge blow to the islanders to find out that only three of the six finalists have more than 200k followers.
Many are no doubt hoping to forge lucrative careers as influencers and win clothing brands, and will have to work fast to try and build their following online once their phones are returned.
The reigning champions, Kai and Sanam, have just 123,000 and 147,000 followers on Instagram, respectively.
Runner-up Lana scores slightly better at 244k, while Samie has the biggest lead out of all the finalists at 259k.
Shaq has the lowest with less than 100,000 followers at press time.
For the first time in Love Island history, the islanders’ social media profiles remained ‘inactive’ during their time on the show.
The big change was decided by ITV producers after years of friends and family struggling to cope with the levels of trolling they received while managing their loved ones’ social media accounts from home.
In previous series, the Islander teams used their accounts to encourage viewers to vote for them and increase their following, but this has led to them being abused by trolls and fighting with family and friends of other contestants.
Kai and Sanam were crowned winners of Love Island Winter 2023 on Monday night, beating out original couple Ron and Lana for the £50k prize money.
After eight weeks of drama, viewers chose the social worker and physical education teacher, who fell in love during Casa Amor, as their champions.
The occasion marks the first time a Casa Amor bomba has entered the show and taken victory in the show’s eight-year history.
Impressive: Meanwhile, it has been revealed that Kai and Sanam won by a landslide, receiving a whopping 44 percent of the vote.
Fourth place: However, Tanya Manhenga and Shaq Muhammad only got 2 percent of the final vote.
The couple was left speechless when presenter Maya Jama announced the results during the live finale in South Africa.
Before her win, Sanam accidentally revealed that she has a crush on Kai, while he told viewers to “watch this space” on how to make the beauty his girlfriend in the outside world.
After her win, Sanam told 28-year-old Maya, ‘I can’t believe it,’ while Kai was speechless.
She said of their romance, “For me, it was always Kai, like I always said he was my number one.” He obviously is a very attractive guy but he made me fall in love with everything. Everything about him I loved. I really didn’t think he was going to be here. I’m going to cry.’