ITV is to review its decision to show adverts promoting breast enlargement and diet pills to Love Island viewers, following criticism from the head of the NHS and feminist campaign groups.
The wildly successful dating programme has helped increase revenues at the broadcaster, attracting hard-to-reach young audiences and providing an enormous boost for its online ITV Hub streaming service.
Some viewers watching Love Island through the online service, however, saw adverts promoting companies such as MYA Cosmetic Surgery, which offers loans for breast enlargements, nose jobs and tummy tucks. The company had previously said it was using ITV Hub to reach women aged 18-34 who were watching the show. Other viewers criticised the decision to run promotions for the appetite suppressant Skinny Sprinkles.
ITV’s chief executive, Carolyn McCall, praised the “phenomenal” success of Love Island for dramatically increasing its share of 16- to 34-year-old viewers by a fifth on ITV2 in the first half of the year. On average 300,000 mostly young viewers watched each episode of Love Island on ITV Hub, more than watch many shows on digital channels on traditional TV. Some episodes broke 1m streams online.
McCall also said the promotions met broadcast regulators’ standards, but that the channel was now reviewing its decision to show them during Love Island.
“There were a tiny number of ads where I would have thought the juxtaposition was not quite right so we’re very sensitive to that,” she told BBC Breakfast. “We are highly regulated. We’re regulated for advertising content and for all our content, so we have done nothing wrong. It’s more about about our judgment, so we are monitoring and working on that.
“My judgment, and that’s my judgment, is that the juxtaposition of a tiny fraction of what we did – on Hub only, not on our broadcast channel – may not have been quite right.
“We are looking at that and we will take our own action.”
The chief executive of NHS England, Simon Stevens, has criticised ITV’s decision to run “explicit ads aiming at young women around breast cosmetic surgery” and said it was part of a culture that increased pressure on the NHS’s eating disorder services.
“That is all playing into a set of pressures around body image that are showing up as a burden on other services,” he said earlier this month.
Carys Afoko of the feminist campaign group Level Up said: “ITV is right to listen to concerns about the harmful impact of diet and surgery adverts on viewers’ mental health.
“Thousands of Level Up supporters sent personal messages to ITV about the harm these adverts cause. We are delighted they have listened and are taking responsibility”.
