https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/cbs-love-island-ratings-1203265137/
The CBS reality show has averaged a disappointing 2.3 million viewers since its debut two weeks ago. And it's not getting any help from delayed viewership. Yet the British version of Love Island also struggled at first. It didn't become a massive success until its third season.
People say the British edition is so much better, but I wonder why exactly and what is different. Maybe British TV is more lenient about nudity or language or something?
shareLove Island has struggled because it's boring with a bad batch of contestants
https://www.indiewire.com/2019/08/love-island-usa-episodes-cbs-not-working-1202162393/
"Reality TV has to make choices so viewers don’t have to — and I’m not talking about the somewhat surprising decision to renew Love Island for Season 2, which CBS announced Thursday morning," says Ben Travers. "Decisions have to be made within the series itself: Producers have to stir the pot, contestants have to be pushed to reveal intimate emotions, and the series itself has to choose which moments add up to the most enticing narrative. It’s not that this version is bad; plenty of reality TV is supposed to be bad. But Love Island is boring." Travers adds: "With all of these opportunities for romantic frisson, it’s remarkable how unexciting Love Island has turned out to be… until you look beyond the set-up and examine the structure. Sure, reality TV can thrive with a simple premise — Big Brother and The Real World prove this pretty well — but only if it’s got the right contestants being given enough motivation."
Thanks for posting it, but I think the writer failed to sufficiently do their homework. The show has been a big success in the UK. Why? Were whatever those factors were copied in the US version or not? My guess is that probably the producers of the US version felt that they knew better and changed it, losing the appeal in the process. The writer of the article didn't have any information on the UK version though.
shareApparently a big reason for the appeal of the UK version of the show is something called Casa Amor, a stage of the game in which they separate the competitors by gender for days on end and bring new members of the opposite sex in to live with them. This apparently really tests the strengths of the existing relationships. Mysteriously CBS decided not to include this part of the game.
shareDifferences between UK and US versions
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/on-television/the-glorious-depravity-of-the-british-love-island