ITV Studios Australia to produce Love Island New Zealand for Three

New Zealand becomes 12th territory to commission the global hit format

ITV Studios and Motion Content Group’s award-winning, record-breaking format Love Island has been commissioned by Three in New Zealand, taking the total number of original commissions to 12.

Love Island NZ will be produced by ITV Studios Australia, in what will be its first production for a New Zealand network.

The deal, which was brokered by ITV Studios Global Entertainment out of its Sydney office, will see Three become the home of Love Island in New Zealand. In addition to launching the show in 2019, the network has also acquired the rights to the second series in Australia, as well as licensing series 5 in the UK and the first series in the U.S. on CBS, all of which are also set to air later this year.

ITV Studios Australia produced the hugely successful first series of Love Island Australia last year, which broke viewing records for Network Nine’s catch-up service 9Now. It has entered its biggest production year to date, with new and returning shows for 2019 including Operation Live, Sunday Night Takeaway, The Voice, I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! The Chase and its first scripted project, SeaChange, a co-production with Every Cloud Productions.

David Mott, CEO and Managing Director, ITV Studios Australia said: "Part of our ongoing strategy is to grow and develop production opportunities beyond Australia, with New Zealand being a key market for us in doing so. For Love Island to be our first commission in the territory is really exciting and we can’t wait to start working with Three to make the series a hit there. Fans of the show are in for a real treat in 2019.”

MediaWorks Chief Content Officer, Andrew Szusterman, said: “Love Island takes the concept of ‘appointment viewing’ to a whole new level and has been smashing records on air along with creating unprecedented social media hype and audience engagement.

“This show really is redefining the traditional television landscape, the likes of which New Zealand has not seen before and I’m really proud that yet again Three is leading the way in entertainment television by bringing it first to New Zealanders.”

Since the beginning of 2018, Love Island has tripled its overall number of international production hours. On air in seven territories last year, with all versions produced by ITV Studios’ local production labels in those countries, the format will launch in at least five more countries in 2019, with Belgium (SBS), Holland (RTL) and Poland (Polsat) joining New Zealand and the U.S. in commissioning the series. In addition, the show will also return for a second series on TV4 in Sweden and a third run in Germany on RTL II.

Viewing records were smashed in several territories last year, with Germany joining the UK and Australia in achieving huge ratings success. In Australia, the first episode secured the highest-ever Video Player Measurement (VPM) ratings of any Australian reality series on catch-up service 9Now within 24 hours of broadcast, while the second season on RTL II became the most streamed show on Germany’s TV Now catch-up service. In the UK, the launch of season four delivered ITV2’s highest overnight ratings since records began and was the highest-rated show across ALL channels in the 9.00PM slot.

Full of flirting, jealousy, rejection and fun, Love Island sees its occupants live the celebrity lifestyle in a stunning villa in a beautiful location. They are on the lookout for romance but as always, the road to love never runs smoothly, as they must not only choose their partner wisely but also win the hearts of the public. It’s up to the viewers to decide who they want to stay in the show as they watch the relationships develop and ultimately which pair they want to crown the hottest couple on the island.

Love Island is based on a format owned by ITV Studios and Motion Content Group Ltd and is distributed internationally by ITV Studios Global Entertainment.

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About ITV Studios
ITV Studios produces more than 8,400 hours of content annually across its UK and international production labels. It has production offices in the United Kingdom, USA, Australia, France, Germany, the Nordics, Italy and the Netherlands.

About Motion Content Group

Motion Content Group is a global content investment and rights management company. It invests and partners with the world’s leading talent, producers and distributors to fund, develop, produce and distribute premium content. Motion supports editorially and commercially vibrant networks and platforms by helping meet the ever-increasing demand for premium content, for the benefit of advertisers and its content partners. Headquartered in London and Los Angeles, Motion currently operates in 26 countries worldwide and has a broad range of award-winning programming distributed globally. Motion’s content investments include global hit and record-breaking format LOVE ISLAND (ITV Studios/Motion) produced in 11 countries with 2019 seeing the series launch on CBS in the US; Channel 4’s ground-breaking social media reality series THE CIRCLE (StudioLambert/Motion) with international versions in production for Netflix; Sky originals family game show WILD THINGS with local productions including Russia, China and Argentina, and currently in production for RTL2 in Germany; long running series BEN FOGLE: NEW LIVES IN THE WILD (Renegade/Motion) and Indian talk show NO. 1 YAARI, now produced in five languages. Motion has also licensed global hit formats including MASTERCHEF SINGAPORE (Endemol Shine International) and THAILAND’S GOT TALENT (Fremantle). Motion Content Group is part of GroupM, the world’s leading full-service media investment management operation, a WPP company.