Love Island

This should be the television hit of the summer.

My only anxiety is the five night a week stripping (as in TV, not clothing, but that will happen too) and the practice of U.S. television to focus on the surface as opposed to the essence. This is not about who is the best-looking, this is about the best at coupling up and having sex.

Yes, that's an integral part of "Love Island"... The f...ing.

Admit it you watch porn on your computer, imagine if it came to real life, on the flat screen, would you check it out? OF COURSE YOU WOULD!

This is for ladies and gents. After all, it takes two to tango. And everybody's curious.

I saw a billboard for the show today. I wondered if it was the U.K. one I was familiar with. After all, the names are so similar, "Temptation Island" and...

You see "Love Island" caused conversation in the U.K. By demonstrating how vapid the contestants are, how they're ruled by the physical as opposed to the mental, how they smoke and break traditional societal mores...it's hard to take your eyes off a train-wreck, especially when that train-wreck is you!

You see we live in a puritanical country. Last week on Sirius XM I asked people to tell me their favorite album to make love to. CRICKETS! I got tweets the week before about not letting callers expound, but those same callers refused to weigh in on this topic. Of those who did call in, most were women. And Volume is dominated by guys, albeit not in the percentage you see at a Rush show. Women are portrayed as meek and shy and...the truth is, they're not. And what did I learn? Most couples put on music less for the inspiration than to drown out the sound, so their children can't hear. For others with older children, it's a sign that they should not open the door, they might not, probably won't, like what they see. You see sex is a taboo.

But not on "Love Island."

This is just the first season, so they're not stacking the deck, like they used to do on "The Real World," with Puck and other pot-stirrers. You've got no trans-people, switch-hitting is not a factor, and too many of the people are beautiful and white. But...the sex remains.

And the audience participates. People no longer live tweet awards shows, they're boring. And voting at the end of the series is de rigueur, but voting in the middle of the show? To change the cast?

And that's one thing different from the usual reality series. They keep injecting new contestants.

People don't really have sex, right? On Volume I remarked that on the radio no one knows who you are, you can even employ a fake name...but the same public watching porn inside refuses to reveal its peccadilloes outside. Hell, there was that suit in Utah, a few decades back, the officials wanted to get rid of porn. But then the cable company revealed that its customers in the Beehive State were huge porn viewers, and porn remained on TV.

But you probably don't know about "Love Island." And it's not like CBS has done an incredible job of promoting it. Actually, I can applaud them for depending upon word of mouth. But the truth is, CBS is its own echo chamber. Netflix does a better job of promoting its shows. They appear every time you log in, and more people watch Netflix than CBS.

This also demonstrates the failure of advertising. First and foremost, youngsters hate ads, so even though networks charge a fortune for the largest audience, it's a fallacious concept. And even if you promote the hell out of something, you can't reach people. Actually, today the promotion is done after a show hits. That started with "The Sopranos," moved on to "Game of Thrones" and now "Stranger Things." Once you've got a base of fans, then you pile on the stories and the tie-ins and the ads.

So, the initial "Love Island" promo won't draw in outsiders. No, CBS is dependent upon traditional TV viewers to spread the word. Then again, there will be live streaming, but once again, that gets traction after the fact.

So it all comes down to execution and word of mouth. Can CBS execute as well as ITV? And will the show be titillating and engaging enough to engender word of mouth?

The story of "Love Island," the U.K. version, has been all over the U.K. press and the elite press in America. Yes, you can read the international press here in the U.S.A., hell, you can read "The Daily Mail" on Apple News. But, the stories are not as good as the TV show is. The TV show is a view into the psyche of the population, a visual demonstration of the human condition, and too often writing is just the facts.

And on "Love Island" the facts are important. But it's the penumbra that makes the show garner ratings. You see, life runs on nuance. And sex.

And there's plenty of both on "Love Island"!

https://www.cbs.com/shows/love-island/


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