The final episode of 'Love Island' attracted 3.4 million viewers for ITV

Ekin-Su Cülcülolu and Davide Sanclimenti were crowned "Love Island" winners by 3.4 million viewers. This is ITV's biggest finale since 2019, with 100,000 more viewers than last year.

Over 3.4 million people tuned in to the season 8 finale on Monday evening across ITV2 and ITV Hub. Moreover, the full season has amassed more than 250 million streams, becoming ITV Hub's most-watched series ever.

Averaging 2.7 million viewers across its eight weeks of broadcast, this year's season is second only to 2019's. After a fan vote, Cülcülolu, an actor, and Sanclimenti, a business owner, were voted winners. Despite an on-off temperamental relationship, the duo became more intimate over eight weeks in the Majorcan villa.

Although the prize money is £50,000 ($61,000), the exposure provided by the show is equally valuable. 1.2 million Instagram followers followed Cülcülolu the morning after the show ended, and one million followed Sanclimenti.

In second place were Gemma Owen, daughter of former England footballer Michael Owen, and Luca Bish. With five million viewers tuning in to the opening episode of "Love Island," the 2022 season was a hit for ITV. The show, however, has been dogged by controversy, with thousands of viewers complaining to UK television regulator Ofcom about allegations of misogynistic behavior from some of the male contestants.

ITV Studios' managing director, Kevin Lygo, responded to the complaints by saying: "We constantly evaluate the program as it goes on, since it's one of these odd, every night live shows.". “After the series finishes on Monday, we will review what we think, what the reaction has been, and how it has performed.”

It's one of our best since many years ago. There's a lot of enjoyment among everyone. It is unusual in today's world for five million people to watch the same show every night at nine o'clock. Something is going right.

However, we must always work on what we have done and look for ways to improve. We're very happy with the way things have gone so far."As part of its winter schedule, ITV has already announced that it will broadcast "Love Island" in South Africa in the new year.