From the US to Finland, the dating show is going global – but not all audiences are taking to it

The Germans have a tendency to get naked. The Australians spend much of their time by the barbecue. And the Finns have gained a reputation for being too reticent – while also needing buckets of suncream.

Love Island, the ITV dating show and cultural phenomenon that has become a fixture of the British summer, is spreading around the world, with broadcasters in 13 territories ranging from Hungary to New Zealand now making their own local version.

But in the process of introducing each new country to the delights of watching a group of 20-somethings wearing swimwear attempting to couple up in a Mediterranean villa, the production team inevitably end up revealing something about each nation’s personality.

“There are definitely cultural differences around what is acceptable,” said Mike Beale, managing director of ITV’s Global creative network, who has helped to sell the format around the world. “Nudity is just not as big an issue in Germany and Denmark.”

The first overseas version of the show was in Germany, where Heiße Flirts und wahre Liebe – “hot flirts and true love” - has become a staple of the tabloid Bild’s celebrity coverage and created a new group of Instagram influencers.

TV critic Arno Orzessek of Germany’s Radio 4 equivalent, Deutschlandfunk, went so far as to describe the show as part Goethe relationship drama and part “preserved fried sausage”, urging German “cultural snobs” to give it a chance.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Finland’s Love Island appeals as its audience is ‘introverted’, said one journalist Photograph: handout

In Scandinavia, where splitting groups into men and women and emphasising drinking can seem strange in countries with a more progressive approach to gender equality and restricted alcohol sales, editions of the show have a different tone.

Finnish journalist Renaz Ebrahimi said part of the show’s appeal is the insight it offers into relationships, “since Finnish people are quite introverted”.

In the UK at least Love Island has proved to be a rare programme that could convince viewers aged 16-34 to tune in to live television at a specific time – an incredibly valuable advertising asset in an era when audiences are fragmenting.

Beale is aware of the challenge of selling a television programme aimed at an audience who don’t generally watch live television to middle-aged executives at traditional broadcasters.

“When we initially pitched this in America we sent episodes to the assistants of the executives we were going to pitch the show to – because it was the assistants who were going to watch the show,” he said.

ITV has had to counsel foreign TV executives that they might have to accept low television ratings for the initial series as an investment in the format. They are told that this will pay dividends if they follow the established playbook on making a show go viral on Instagram and YouTube. Local broadcasters are encouraged to put as much emphasis on viewers watching on catch-up and via the official app as on live broadcasts.

One problem faced by the global spin-offs is that young audiences are increasingly bilingual and plugged into global conversations. Faced with a choice between watching reticent Scandinavians attempting to chat each other up and the full-blown glitz of a less-inhibited group of Britons, they might go for the latter.

“I chose to watch the English version because I saw people tweet about it and wanted to understand and because I love the English language,” said a Irma, a 20-year-old student from Oslo. She said the general perception of the domestic version is that “the Norwegian participants are more afraid to step on people’s toes, which leads to it being a lot more tame and thus less entertaining”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Nudity is not a big issue’ … the German version of Love Island

The global editions have also been a boon for owners of island villas, as producers scout for an ever-growing number of houses in Corfu, Gran Canaria and Mallorca. Production guidelines say the villas should look “aspirational” to 18-30 year olds without slipping into the “luxury” that would appeal to their parents. A new British winter edition of of the show will decamp to South Africa, while the the Finnish edition is filmed on mainland Spain after bosses concluded that Love Island is “a metaphorical, not a physical space”.

Not everything has gone to plan. The voiceover artist on the joint Netherlands-Belgium version was replaced halfway through the first series because they sounded like a newsreader – producers would rather people who can make “snarky” comments that are the equivalent of live-tweeting a programme.

The knives are already out for the programme in the US, where it is being shown nightly on the CBS network to low ratings. And local media in new territories often picks up on the suicides of two former British contestants, which ITV is at pains to point out has resulted in new psychological tests and aftercare.

But international sales have not been held back. There are plans to target South America – where the hope is that fans of telenovelas could become fans of the show – and India.

Beale said the show’s success relies on ensuring the focus is on relationships, not sex, and in the rarity of forcing 20-something contestants to have face-to-face conversations rather than on their phone.

“This isn’t soft porn, that’s not what we’re about,” he said. “We are trying to put this forward as a love story. Communication is so digital these days that you break up over WhatsApp – but they can’t do that in this environment.

“Big Brother launched as a high-level social experiment and became reality TV. I think we’re going the other way.”