Maya Jama has responded to news of low watching ratings for the 2023 summer series of Love Island, praising the increased traffic to ITVX.
To say the least, the current season of the ITV2 competition has been a whirlwind, with Molly Marsh flying between Mitchel Taylor and Zachariah Noble and Ruchee Gurung dealing with being ‘used’ by Andre Furtado.
Despite the islanders’ rollercoaster ride barely one week in, it was claimed earlier this month that viewership levels had dropped to an all-time low.
It was revealed that an average of 1.3 million viewers turned in to see the first episode, with an additional 400,000 viewing it on ITVX.
This was slightly over half of last year’s summer launch ratings, with the 2022 debut episode averaging 2.4 million viewers.
It has now been claimed that 3 million fans tuned in across all devices to see the series 10 opening, garnering the largest TV audience of 16 to 24-year-olds on any commercial channel since the 2022 World Cup.
According to reports, just two episodes of the winter season outperformed the Love Island 2023 summer series debut viewership ratings this year.
According to ITV, the current series of Love Island has been viewed over 200 million times… Maya was pleased to celebrate its accomplishment.
Sharing a screenshot of the aforementioned article on her Instagram Story, the 28-year-old wrote in her caption: ‘The papers were so quick to report viewers being low but the honeys were watching online on @itvxofficial,’ adding an emoji of nails being painted.
She continued: ‘This season is ELITE thank you very much.’
Meanwhile on Twitter, ITVX responded to Maya’s tweet saying the same thing by writing: ‘They always forget about us (side eye 👀).’
Maya initially appeared on Love Island earlier this year, taking over as host from former presenter Laura Whitmore.
Maya was replaced on the make-up competition by model Leomie Anderson, who had previously hosted the BBC Three programme Glow Up.
Whitney Adebayo of Love Island has proven to be one of the most entertaining castmembers of the 2023 summer season line-up, with viewers adoring her responses to two new bombshells joining the island and the dramatic recoupling on Tuesday evening.
‘The producers did a thing when they cast Whitney! She’s so funny,’ one fan tweeted, while another remarked: ‘Whitney is so dramatic.’
After finishing in the bottom two, either Ella Thomas or Ruchee will be let go from the show.
Love Island returns tonight at 9pm on ITV2 and ITVX.
