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ITV has revived its immensely-popular reality series Love Island – a little earlier than you might’ve expected. The latest reboot, dubbed Love Island: Winter, starts on January 16th and sees all-new host Maya Jama guide a slew of new singletons looking for love. The series will be set in a revamped South African villa, instead of the typical Mallorca residence. For those looking to escape the chilly winter nights in the UK, the return of this much-loved dating series could be the perfect fix.
Things have changed since Love Island was last on our screens – for one, host Laura Whitmore is no longer presenting the dating show, following a three-series run from 2020 to 2022, and has been replaced by Maya Jama. In another big shift since we last settled down to watch a dramatic recoupling, ITV has ditched its catch-up service ITV Hub and streamer BritBox in favour of its rebooted app, ITV X. The latter will be the only way to watch Love Island: Winter live online or on-demand after the fact.
If you have Freeview, Freeview Play, Sky Glass, Sky Stream or Sky Q, Virgin TV 360, you’ll be able to watch all of the romance, break-ups and challenges on free-to-air channel ITV2. If you miss an episode, you’ll need to download ITV X to your set-top box, Smart TV, or satellite box to watch every episode of the show.
Unfortunately, ITV X is geo-restricted, which means it’s only available to watch for those located in the UK. If you’re abroad, you’ll need to rely on a VPN to watch Love Island on ITV X.
We’d recommend ExpressVPN, which is currently offering 3 months access for free and 49% off the remaining months.
This VPN service earned the full five-stars in our ExpressVPN review. The best VPN allows you to manually change your IP address, which makes it appear as if you’re located in another country – allowing you to access TV shows, live sports fixtures, movies, and streaming services not currently available in your current location.
Not only that, but VPNs encrypt everything you do online, preventing anyone from keeping tabs on your activity. In some countries, your internet provider is able to sell data on your web browsing habits to advertisers, with a VPN running, even the company that provides your broadband connection won’t be able to see what you’re doing. Think of it like Incognito Mode, but cranked up to 11.
As well as each new episode of Winter Love Island as it airs, ITV X includes every single previous series of the rebooted Love Island, which started back in 2015.
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Want to stream Love Island from anywhere in the world? ExpressVPN allows you to change the location of your phone, tablet, Fire TV box, Smart TV, or laptop so you can continue to watch Love Island live from ITV X even when you’re abroad with work or on holiday!
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Can you watch ITV X outside of the UK?
Unfortunately, ITV X restricts its content for those living outside of the UK.
While it was previously possible to stream everything available on ITV’s catch-up service, then branded as ITV Hub, from countries outside of the UK for an optional monthly fee, this option has been ditched in the revamp to ITV X. The explanation behind the change is due to the UK’s decision to leave the European Union, ITV explains on its FAQ.
“Since the UK has left the EU, the portability law that allows digital content to be accessed across Europe will no longer apply. In order to make sure we’re ready for this change, you will no longer be able stream catch up programmes outside of the UK.”
It’s possible to download episodes of your favourite show to view offline – on a plane or train, for example – with the ITV X app on your iPhone, Android, or iPad. This feature also allows you to watch episodes, documentaries, and films outside of the UK …however, it’s not a good solution for a show like Love Island, which airs new episodes every evening.
To access ITV X just like you would when sitting on the sofa at home, you’ll need a VPN running on the same device as the streaming service. We’ve got all of the instructions you need to get everything up-and-running from anywhere in the world below.
How to watch Love Island on ITV X abroad with a VPN
Want to watch the brand-new series of Love Island from anywhere? You’ll need a VPN, or Virtual Private Network, installed on the iPhone, Android, iPad, Windows PC, Fire TV Stick, MacBook, or whatever device you’re planning to watch on.
For those who don’t know, VPNs are clever apps that re-route all of your internet traffic via an encrypted tunnel – shielding it from advertisers, prying eyes, bad actors, and more. Since everything is encrypted, your personal details and data are better protected. It’s the reason that most companies require all employees to use a VPN to work remotely.
Since your internet traffic is being re-routed, it’s easy for VPNs to push your traffic via different server locations across the planet, making it appear as if you’re connecting to the internet from another part of the globe.
Switching server locations will change your IP address – the string of numbers that identifies your device (and your current location) to online services and websites. This is what allows Google Maps to generate turn-by-turn directions from your current location, retailers to tell you which of its branches is closest to you, or takeaway websites to work out the best delivery address for you.
For those looking to stream from catch-up services, sports fixtures, or streamers not available in every country worldwide …it’s the IP address that can blocks you from watching.
If you’re hoping to watch ITV X from anywhere on the planet, all you’ll need to do is select a VPN server in the UK, wait for the connection to be established, and voila! Head to your web browser and head to ITV X as you normally would and everything should work exactly identically to when you’re watching from your home in the UK. This is perfect for anyone travelling with work or on holiday who doesn’t want to miss a single episode.
If you haven’t already got a VPN subscription, we’d recommend either ExpressVPN or NordVPN.
Both of these services are superb choices, with minimal impact on your download speeds despite the vast distances being travelled (perfect when streaming high-quality video), offer bundles with other useful applications (password managers, secure online storage), and boast server locations across dozens of countries.
Here are a few simple steps on how to do…
- Download a VPN, the best two are the ExpressVPN or NordVPN
- Load up your newly-installed VPN
- Select a server based in the UK
- Head to the ITV X website or open the ITV X app on your device
- Select Love Island
- And that’s it! Everything should load as if you’re sitting on the sofa at home
To watch episodes that are already live, head to ITV X. Remember, you’ll need to make sure you have a valid TV license to watch any UK TV show when overseas.
ExpressVPN – Get 3 months FREE + save 49%
View Deal
Want to stream Love Island from anywhere in the world? ExpressVPN allows you to change the location of your phone, tablet, Fire TV box, Smart TV, or laptop so you can continue to watch Love Island live from ITV X even when you’re abroad with work or on holiday!
NordVPN – Get 3 months FREE + save 64%
View Deal
Can’t bear the thought of missing out on the most-talked-about moment of the new winter series of Love Island? You don’t have to! With NordVPN, you can unblock access to ITV X from anywhere in the world and stream like you would in the UK
How to watch Love Island in the UK
If you’re looking to watch the new series of Love Island from the UK, there are multiple ways to tune-in. From the slew of singletons entering the South African villa to the winning couple splitting the £50,000 cash prize in the grand finale, every episode will be broadcast live on ITV2.
The channel is available on Freeview boxes and Freeview-equipped Smart TVs on channel 6, as well as Sky Q, Sky Stream, and Sky Glass boxes on channel 118 (HD) or channel 816 (Standard Definition). Virgin Media customers will need to tune-in to channel 176 (HD) and channel 115 (Standard Definition). And finally, Freesat viewers will need to head to channel 113 for ITV2.
Of course, UK viewers can also use ITV X to watch everything live or on-demand. Each episode of Love Island will be available to stream live as it airs on terrestrial telly, with the on-demand version of the show accessible after the broadcast. ITV X is accessible for free, with advertising funding the service.
However, those who want to watch the episodes on-demand without the ad breaks can pay £5.99 per month or £59.99 per year to remove all adverts from the streamer.
Dubbed ITV X Premium, the upgrade also brings exclusive boxsets from BritBox into the catalogue, thousands of exclusive ITV X shows, and the ability to download episodes onto your device to watch anywhere – even without Wi-Fi. ITV X is currently offering a 7-day free trial of its Premium service.
What is Love Island?
Love Island is a reality TV show that first premiered on the UK’s ITV2 network in 2005 under the title Celebrity Love Island.
The show is a dating competition in which a group of single men and women, known as Islanders, live together in a villa in a beautiful tropical location. The islanders are constantly under surveillance and are required to couple up with each other in order to remain on the show.
Throughout the series, the islanders participate in various challenges and activities in order to win prizes for the villa and get to know one another. The audience is never sure whether the relationships being formed are genuine …or purely for the cameras in order to avoid elimination and be in with a chance to win the cash prize.
The show was co-created by Richard Cowles, who was also responsible for creating other successful reality TV shows such as I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! and Hell’s Kitchen. The first series of Love Island was set in Fiji and featured only 11 islanders, with the first couple to win the show being Jayne Middlemiss and Fran Cosgrave.
The series was not an immediate hit and received mixed reviews, but it was enough to warrant a second series the following year. However, the failure of the second series – broadest during the spring-summer season – to gain traction led to the cancellation of the show in November 2005.
Years later, the co-creator of the show pitched a reworked version of the show, which debuted in 2015. Unlike the original version, there would be no celebrities featured, with everyday people parachuted into the villa instead. Caroline Flack replaced Patrick Kielty, Kelly Brook and Fearne Cotton on presenting duties.
Although the 2015 series wasn’t a runaway success, the fanbase for the show has steadily grown each summer.
The following seasons of Love Island have become more popular and culturally relevant with each iteration, with a peak audience of 5.61 million viewers tuning in every night during the fifth season of the rebooted Love Island, which saw Amber Gill and Greg O’Shea claim the £50,000 prize fun. The show’s success led to numerous spin-offs in other countries around the world, including Australia (which is also popular in the UK) and the United States, to name a few.
The dating show has become an important part of British popular culture, and it has launched the careers of several contestants who have gone on to become celebrities in their own right. Despite the criticism and controversy that the show has faced over the years, Love Island continues to be a major commercial and critical success for ITV and has become a permanent fixture in the UK’s television landscape.
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