The Making of ‘Love Island USA’: How Peacock Pulled Off the Buzziest Reality Show of the Summer in Real Time

After years of flying under the streaming radar, “Love Island USA” became the cultural hit of the summer with Season 6, as both loyal reality TV fans and newcomers flocked to the Peacock series for the promise of romance, big twists and even bigger laughs.

With over a dozen iterations across the globe — the most popular coming from the UK, US and Australia — “Love Island” follows the real-time dating journey of a group of singles in a posh villa, with new singles (know as bombshells) coming in every so often to test existing romantic connections. Though “Love Island UK” has been a must-watch iteration of the dating franchise before, “Love Island USA” managed to break through to the mainstream this year, as reality franchises like “Love Is Blind” and “The Bachelor” grappled with lawsuits and declining interest.

Since “Love Island USA” premiered on June 11, Season 6 grew into the No. 1 most-watched reality series across all streaming platforms, according to preliminary Nielsen data from June 10 to July 14 provided by Peacock. During the interval of June 24-30, the Peacock series tallied 434 million minutes viewed.

The show’s increased popularity feels like a “perfect storm” for showrunner and executive producer Ben Thursby-Palmer, who credited new host and “Vanderpump Rules” star Ariana Madix for bringing in “fresh eyes” among Bravo fans, as well as the season’s relatable casting and some unexpected twists across 36 episodes for its success.

“It’s really hard to put your finger on, ‘Oh, it’s a hit this year because of this person or this thing,’ ” Thursby-Palmer told TheWrap. “Every year we try and challenge ourselves to make the best season we can.”

TheWrap spoke with the “Love Island USA” production team about making the buzziest reality show of the summer in real time, delivering a new episode almost daily.

Changing things up

Coming on the heels of Peacock’s successful “Love Island Games” — a game-centric spin-off series that welcomed islanders from across the global franchise — the show embraced a few more twists and turns this season, including kicking off the premiere with an ice-breaker challenge that tested the islanders’ chemistry before first coupling up, and adding a “stick or twist” game to see which islanders were open to making new connections after the first couple of weeks. For the first time, production also gave the male islanders the option of sticking to their couple or heading to Casa Amor — a replica villa filled with new potential matches where the men spend one week of the season. The challenges functioned as a way to keep the islanders “accountable” for their actions.

This year’s casting has also been applauded by fans, and while nothing changed extensively in the casting process, Thursby-Palmer noted this season’s islanders have developed closer bonds, both between the couples and the islanders who aren’t in relationships with one another — cue Aaron Evans and Rob Rausch’s unstoppable bromance.

“There was always fallout, because they could always discuss their decision-making,” Thursby-Palmer said. “I think that has helped.”

“24-hour turnaround”

Filmed in Fiji, “Love Island USA” is edited in real time — Monday’s happenings in the villa are quickly condensed down to an hourlong show that premieres Tuesday evening, and so on.

The 19-hour time difference works to the editing team’s advantage, according ITV America’s chief technology officer Danielle DiStefano, who explained that by the time the episode is edited late at night the day the action happens, it’s actually early morning in the US, giving the team mere hours to polish the rough cuts into an episode.

“We edit it as it comes in,” EP Claudine Parrish told TheWrap. “The islanders wake up [and] the control room [will be] commissioning scenes based on what’s happening. They’ll label them like, ‘Boys make breakfast for the girls,’ and 15 minutes after it’s happened, it’s in our edits — an editor’s on it and making it into a scene.”

The show has about 50 editors and 20 producers working across different departments and processes, Parrish told TheWrap. Editing starts with the story team, which compiles individual moments and conversations to build into scenes, which are subsequently handed to the stitch team, who put together a collection of scenes into six or seven acts. This process is aided by an executive producer, who has already decided a running order of which conversations are best to include in the episode, based on whether or not the team believes a certain relationship or storyline has potential.

While the show’s streaming nature enables editors not to be beholden to commercial breaks, the daily episodes typically stick to the hour-mark, with the exception of some bigger installment, like the fallout of Casa Amor or an especially dramatic recoupling. In crunching down a whole day into one episode, Parrish admitted there must be a “judgment call on whether a story has legs, and if it’s going to go somewhere.”

“Every so often, you’ll notice in the series we have featured a story and it didn’t go somewhere,” Parrish said, pointing to a potential connection between Liv Walker and Rausch, which was never explored further. “After Casa … their headspace moved on, so we don’t always get it right. We’re always making that call on, ‘Is this important or is this going to change by tomorrow?'”

Narrating the action

After Parrish’s team comes in to “finesse everything to the nth degree,” that’s when series narrator Iain Stirling adds his signature vocals. As Stirling balances narrating both “Love Island USA” and “Love Island UK,” the “USA” team has Stirling for a window during his evening into early morning, which is early morning for the team in Fiji.

“By that point, we’ve got a working running order, so he’ll be seeing the rough cut,” Parrish said. “He watches it via Zoom, [and] he and the writers get together and literally write as they’re seeing it. They’re just observing funny things in the scene, or reminders of what’s happened in the story, that gets recorded [while] he’s at home on his microphone.”

While other movies and TV are edited according to a voiceover, DiStefano pointed out that “Love Island USA” works in the reverse order, adding that Stirling is “reacting to the edit and the cut.” The narration is added to the episode just in time for a screening for Peacock’s legal and standards and practices teams, who might have Stirling go through some of the acts to make necessary adjustments.

And who could forget about the show’s curated music? It always manages to reflect the islanders’ conversations or deepest feelings, and that comes from its on-the-ground music supervisor and clearance team. The show outsources their music clearance to a company that has been working since February to get desired songs cleared, which are then organized in a spreadsheet with categories like “romance,” “arguments,” “drama” and “tension.” Featuring chart toppers like Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan — including the well-placed “Please Please Please” in the onset of Kaylor Martin and Evans’ near-breakup after he made a connection in Casa Amor — as well as up-and-coming artists, musical decisions are made quickly, with DiStefano emphasizing “everything changes fast in real time.”

Islanders set the tone

The show’s tentpole moments, like the challenges and Casa Amor, provide a rough structure for the season. But Thursby-Palmer emphasized that “Love Island USA” is steered by the islanders — whom he calls the “heartbeat” of the show — prompting the producers to be flexible on timelines for recouplings or bringing bombshells in to shake things up.

“We play along with what’s happening in real time in the villa,” Thursby-Palmer said. “If everyone’s really happy in their couple, there’s no real point to recoupling … if they’re all sleeping in different beds all around the villa … we need to reset and put them back together.”

The executive producers also wisely choose their moments to inject information from outside the villa to the islanders — such as when they showed video footage from Casa Amor to the girls, or included viewers’ tweets in a social media challenge. “It’s based on story,” Thursby-Palmer said, adding that while it’s the EPs’ call on whether information should be disclosed to the islanders or not, what they then do with that information is entirely in their hands.

Over a month into the run of Season 6, the executive producers are gearing up to bid farewell to the islanders with this Sunday’s season finale, where one couple will win a grand prize of $100,000 — decided by a vote from fans. The show has already been renewed for a seventh season, which will likely air next summer.

“[The show’s] been really strong this year, and obviously there’s been a lot of drama. They do row with each other, but you do that with with your best friends anyway,” Thursby-Palmer said. “It’s about them coming back together and resolving that and moving on.”

New episodes of “Love Island USA” stream at 6 p.m. PT/9 p.m. ET on Peacock everyday but Wednesday, with the Season 6 finale debuting this Sunday

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