Cracking On With Love Island

Ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes at ITV Content Delivery to get Love Island to your catch up device?

It’s official… This Summer everyone’s favourite dating show is back – yes Love Island Series 7 returns to ITV this June, following a fallow 2020!

The Live Capture team in ITV Content Delivery are responsible for the processing and editing (if required) of any live ITV programming, or pre-recorded material that is delivered so close to transmission it is effectively live, for ITVHub and other VOD platforms.

In ITV Content Delivery, it’s an exciting time of year as Love Island is one of our most high profile and in-demand shows. It’s 100% our type on paper. It has a huge response on socials and many viewers tune in to the show on ITV Hub every evening if they miss the main show on ITV2 to ensure they avoid being mugged off by the spoilers.

But have you ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes to get the show onto the ITV Hub? It’s safe to say that we go Factor 50 in order to get the show on the platform.

If you are a loyal Love Island catch-up viewer you may have noticed that the show is available as soon as the main TX has aired on ITV2. Here at ITV Content Delivery our Live Capture team uses the M2A Capture product from our friends at M2A Media to ensure that delivery to catch-up is achieved as seamlessly and quickly as possible, if we don’t our viewers can get a bit aggy…

Obviously for a show the size and importance of Love Island, planning and preparation starts months ahead of the launch episode. From a technical point of view, the Connectivity team in ITV CS&D cracks on before the Love Island season has started by booking satellite feeds to allow us to capture and record from production to ITV Content Delivery in Leeds every evening an hour before the live TX on ITV2. This extra hour allows for any additional grafting, including re-edits, and for any playout or delivery issues to be ironed out in good time to prevent any delays to catch-up. We absolutely do not want to pie off any of our viewers.

Each evening the Live Capture team will interact directly with production in Mallorca. Production will give a heads up if the playout will be delayed or if there are any issues preempted for that evening so that we can inform the social media teams where our heads are at, let audiences know and to manage their expectations. As fans of the show will know, each episode shows the past day’s events and focuses on the drop me out moments, this means that each show is edited right up to transmission. This doesn’t leave much time or margin for error, and all of our eggs are in one basket when it comes to meeting the transmission deadline.

Once production gives us the go ahead that they are ready to play out that night’s episode, part one will begin and we will start the record at ITV Content Delivery. Throughout the playout we will keep a close eye on the satellite feed to ensure any snakey issues are spotted and fed back to production instantaneously to be fixed.

Due to the nature of the show, there may be late edit requests, making us all go a bit extra. In this instance production will contact us immediately and tell us to halt the record and prepare for a refeed if necessary. When this happens, we do our best not to prang out! Once all of the parts have been recorded and production are happy with the capture, we will confirm the recording which will then be delivered to ITV Hub and other catch up platforms.

With more viewers catching-up on VOD platforms, it’s great that we can be a part of the process that delivers the show with such a quick turnaround. We’d love to hear your thoughts on our delivery process for Love Island. Let us know if you want to go for a chat on the sofas