AFTER days of hype, viewers at last got their first look at ITV’s £15 million reality television spectacular, Celebrity Love Island, which the network hopes will revive its ratings after a run of uninspiring viewing figures.
The show, set on an island resort off the coast of Fiji, attracted an audience of 5.3 million and an audience share of 24 per cent for its 90-minute launch episode which ran from 9pm. However, it was beaten by BBC1’s drama of veteran detectives, New Tricks, which pulled in 7.1 million viewers.
ITV is desperately in need of a ratings success to emulate last year’s I’m a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here!. The network has lost younger and more affluent viewers, both groups keenly sought by advertisers.
ITV insisted Celebrity Love Island had "got off to a great start" and had done "exceptionally well" among its target audience aged 16-34. The network also claimed a success for the digital TV spin-off on ITV2 which attracted a peak audience of 588,000.
However, Celebrity Love Island has a distance to climb before it can match the popularity of I’m a Celebrity, which at its peak drew 15.7 million viewers. The new show hopes to recreate some romantic interest of the kind that sprung up between model Jordan and singer Peter Andre which proved such a lure to I’m a Celebrity audiences.
The show repeats the I’m a Celebrity format. A team of 12 celebrities - all hovering somewhere between B- and C-list status - are cocooned on the idyllic 48-acre Bounty Island resort under the constant eye of cameras.
Viewers can pick couples from the six men and six women who then retire to the "love shack" - a kind of luxury chalet - to see if romance will flourish.
Various tests will be set for the contestants but they will fall short of the kind of insect immersion stunts that characterised I’m a Celebrity. Those taking part include Abi Titmuss, 29, former television presenter John Leslie’s ex-girlfriend, who has appeared on porn TV, and Rebecca Loos, the 27-year-old alleged to have had an affair with David Beckham while working as his personal assistant in Spain.
The men’s team boasts two former soap actors, a former England footballer and George Best’s son Calum, who hit the headlines earlier this year after being caught on CCTV outside a London nightclub enjoying intimate moments with Mick Jagger’s daughter, Elizabeth.
The first episode saw Hollyoaks actor Paul Danan being voted into the "love shack" along with the 23-year-old socialite Lady Isabella Hervey.
The programme runs for five weeks and has a cash prize of £100,000 for the last surviving couple, as well as the usual glut of promotional work on offer to the winners of reality shows.
A crunch test of its popularity will come a week on Friday when Celebrity Love Island is pitched head to head with the sixth series of Channel 4’s Big Brother, which is already being hyped by its makers as "the television event of the summer".
FERGUS SHEPPARD
Wednesday, 18th May 2005
The Scotsman