The nation’s favourite dating show returned last night with an overnight TV audience peak of 3.0 million viewers, and it posted the biggest TV audience of the night for younger viewers (1.1 million 16-34s).

The launch show is one of only four programmes this year to attract over a million 16-34 TV viewers, on any channel, and it is the biggest 16-34 digital channel TV audience this year.

The 90 minute opening episode averaged 2.4 million viewers on TV overnights, which is over a million more viewers than the overnight audience for any Netflix, Disney+ or Amazon Prime programme launch in 2022 to date.

Last night’s show had a bigger audience than the programming on Channel 4, Channel 5 and BBC Two combined.

With overnight ITV Hub viewing on non-TV devices (PC, mobile and tablet) included, the average overnight audience rose to 3 million viewers across devices.