THE Beeb’s answer to Love Island has broken bosses’ hearts by turning into the broadcaster’s biggest ever prime time flop.
— which cost £5million to make — is set to be axed after pulling in just 848,000 viewers for its debut show last Wednesday on One.
Host Davina McCall was not to blame, her ITV show Long Lost Family aired at 9pm the same night and had more than double the viewers
The Beeb’s Stranded on Honeymoon Island appears to be all washed up after poor ratings
The Sun’s TV critic Ally Ross described the show as “twelve gobby exhibitionists having a tax-funded holiday’
That narrowly beat a about Nazi U-boats over on in the same time slot.
Proving host was not to blame, her show aired at 9pm the same night and had more than double the viewers.
But the new dating show fell to an average of 517,000 viewers by its third outing on Friday, and was eclipsed by the 1.4million watching ’s Celebrity Who Wants to be a Millionaire over on ITV.
A TV insider said: “These are abysmal viewing figures by anyone’s standards, but the fact they are for a show in a prime time slot on is beyond belief.
“It’s proof you have to pick the right format for the right channel.
“Trying to create something which has a flavour of , then serving it up to a traditionally mature audience, was a terrible idea.
“Making it worse were the huge costs involved in sending over dozens of contestants and crew to an island in the Philippines — a 13,000-mile round trip.”
The show sees a dozen people pair up after speed dating, get hitched and spend 21 days marooned as they get to know one another and try to survive.
The Sun’s TV critic last week described the show as a “horror show” and dismissed it as: “Twelve gobby exhibitionists having a tax-funded holiday.”
He also pointed out that it felt like it should have been on or , adding: “Over on the state-funded Beeb, however, it feels like a whole world of wrong.”
The latest flop comes after recently confirmed his first big show on BBC One — a reboot of ITV’s .
The 2023 show is believed to have cost £30million to make and was considered a prime time failure after an average of 2.6million viewers tuned in.
The BBC said: “We don’t judge success based on overnight ratings in an on-demand world. This series was commissioned to target young audiences on .”
