Love Island USA Season 6
A hot new bombshell enters the villa - that's right, I've got all the data on the biggest season USA has seen! Ratings, social media and more!
📊 Data in this post: Love Island Ratings • Google Search Trends • Love Island vs Bachelorette 🌹 • Instagram Growth for ALL contestants
You heard that right! We’re giving you all the data on this season of Love Island USA Season 6.
If you’re new to Love Island: this reality dating show where a bunch of singles live together in a villa, cut off from the outside world. They have to pair up and compete in different challenges, all while navigating romance and drama to stay in the game and win a cash prize. New people come in, shake things up, and the public gets to vote on who stays. It's all about the relationships and the chaos that comes with them. If you’re from the Bachelor world, Love Island feels similar to Bachelor in Paradise - but there are competitions and a cash prize in the end. Bachelor in Paradise even took *inspiration* from Love Island recently with the Casa Amor twist where they separate the contestants by gender for a week and introduce new contestants for the cast to date.'
My recap on the season is at the end of the article, but for now let’s jump into the data!
Data: Love Island Ratings • Google Search Trends • Love Island vs Bachelorette • Instagram Growth for ALL contestants
Ratings
If it feels like everyone is talking about Love Island USA this year, you’re absolutely right. This is the biggest season Love Island USA has seen. But how can we measure that?
Seasons 1-3 were aired on CBS, which gave the public access to Nielsen data.
Season 1 averaged at 2.19 million viewers (2019)
Season 2 averaged 1.82m (2020)
Season 3 averaged 1.66m (2021)
After Season 3, the show moved to stream on Peacock. Unfortunately, that data isn’t public. (If anyone at Nielsen wants to hit me up, I’m desperate for access to that data 😂) So how can we measure the ratings since then?
Enter Google Search Trends 🫡
If you haven’t heard of Trends, it’s a tool that analyzes the popularity of top search queries in Google Search across various regions and languages, providing insights into what people are searching for over time. AKA - get data on what people are Googling.
So here’s the data Google provides us on search trends for Love Island USA since 2019:
Interest over time represents the popularity of a specific search term relative to the total search volume across different time periods, displayed on a scale from 0 to 100, where 100 indicates peak popularity.
You might be asking, ‘Why doesn’t Google just give us the data on how many people search?’ Here’s the technical answer: Interest over time is given instead of raw search data to normalize the data, making it easier to compare the popularity of search terms over time and across regions. This approach accounts for the overall growth in search volume and varying population sizes, offering a clearer picture of trends and patterns rather than absolute numbers, which can be misleading. But if you ask me, there’s a good chance they don’t give this information because they don’t want the data to have access to too many of their internal data, but I digress.
What does this data tell us? Love Island USA has never been this popular. This is their biggest season yet and seasons 1-5 don’t even come close. If I had to guess, the show is probably getting anywhere from 2.8-4.9 million viewers each night. 🌹 But how does this compare to The Bachelorette, which airs on the same night once a week?
How does Love Island USA compare to The Bachelorette that premiered this week?
🔴 = The Bachelorette 🔵 = Love Island USA
Looking at the last 7 days, we can see Bachelorette premiere on Monday, July 8th. That night, each show was equally as popular in Search Trends. But Love Island saw an increase Tuesday night.
My guess on ratings: the target audience for each show is similar demographically (women aged 14-49). We can see a small spike Tuesday for The Bachelorette, which are likely next day Hulu watchers and people searching for information on the contestants/spoilers/etc. I am 2 days behind on Love Island myself thanks to Bachelorette coverage, so I can’t speak as to what happened on Tuesday’s episode, but we likely saw some of Love Island’s audience split. Either watching delayed the next day or watching live. But I can tell from my FYP on Tiktok that sh*t has hit the fan this week so that’s probably a factor as well.
Social Media Growth
This season has been a BLAST to analyze. These are some VERY impressive numbers and are likely going to be larger than any growth we’ll see from The Bachelorette’s men this season (competing in the same time block). We’ve been collecting their daily follower counts every day since the season premiered, so here’s what we have so far:
If a contestant has a greyed out background, they were eliminated already. Contestants are sorted by Total Instagram Growth - season to date
If you’re wondering about their Tiktok growth, we’ll have that data next week, so be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the data when it drops!
We’ll also be sharing a special analysis on Ariana Madix’s growth this season on next week’s update.
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Season Recap
This season of “Love Island USA” has been a whirlwind of drama and the most popular season yet, especially with Vanderpump Rules star Ariana Madix (you may know her from the #Scandoval drama last year) taking over as host from Sarah Hyland (yes, Wells Adams’ wife). The season kicked off with some memorable early couples, like Serena and Kordell’s slow-burning romance, and Hannah’s short-lived fling with Kendall, who quickly recouples with bombshell Nicole. JaNa’s no-tolerance attitude towards disrespect makes her a fan favorite, especially in her friendships with Serena and Leah. On the other hand, Coye’s lack of effort gets him sent home first, while Kaylor and Aaron hit it off instantly. Meanwhile, Leah and Rob’s volatile relationship keeps us all on edge.
Liv’s arrival brings some much-needed girl power, even though she doesn’t find a lasting romantic partner. Connor’s messy romance with Leah and Hakeem’s awkward attempts at improving things lead to their early exits. Nicole’s quiet presence contrasts sharply with Andrea’s dramatic coupling with Rob, which ends in tears and tension. Miguel’s casual approach to relationships and his pursuit of Leah after Nicole picks Kendall adds to the drama. Kenny and JaNa’s sweet budding romance faces challenges with the arrival of Casa Amor, a twist that brings new boys and shakes things up.
Casa Amor introduces new faces like Caine, who pairs up with Liv, and Ignacio, whose brief connection with Leah ends when she chooses Miguel. Daniela’s strong connection with Aaron during Casa Amor causes drama when he returns to Kaylor. And Daniela ends up coupling up with Rob and coming back to the villa. *Major drama* Meanwhile, Sierra and Miguel’s complicated triangle with Leah highlights how precarious relationships in the villa can be. Catherine’s awkward kiss with Kenny and his return to the villa underscores the uncertainty and shifting loyalties among the islanders. Daia’s determined pursuit of Kordell and the quiet exits of Destiny and Sydney show just how different everyone’s approach to finding love can be.
With the boys back in the villa with their new partners, we’re gearing up for a chaotic week ahead. Ariana teases even more drama with movie night and a dramatic elimination she describes as a “blood bath.” Adding to the excitement, two contestants from the previous season, Harrison Hans Luna and Kassy Castillo, are set to join the show as new bombshells.