ITV's director of television Kevin Lygo has suggested that this summer's series of Love Island could be cancelled due to coronavirus.
The show is normally filmed in Mallorca with a June start date but achieving that target this year looks impossible due to the ongoing severity of the pandemic, as well as social distancing guidelines.
Speaking at the Edinburgh TV Festival, Lygo also admitted that he is mindful of the juxtaposition of contestants getting intimate in a sunny setting with people trapped in lockdown back in the UK.
"We're right approaching the moment with Love Island of is it feasible, will Mallorca open its doors to hundreds of production people arriving?" he said.
"Will there have to be quarantine? All these things. And so we have to factor all of that in and also, what signal might it be sending out if we're doing a show where everybody is crammed together slathering over each other, and the rest of the world is told don't go near anyone in the park?
"I'm a little uneasy about that, so we will make a decision in a proper way quite soon, but it affects a lot of people, a big commercial impact for us, there's 200 people working on that show.
"The team had looked at doing it in Cornwall somewhere, and we feel now in a rushed sense, no, I don't think making it in the UK, it would be the same show. And we don't want to not make the same show as we have made, because it's been so successful."
Last summer's series was the most successful yet, peaking with 6.15 million viewers for ITV2.
Neil Wilkes
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