The first series of Love Island South Africa has not got off to a good start. Viewers were left seriously disappointed by the predominantly white casting of the show in a country whose population is over 80% black. The show has now responded to the criticism—but fell short of making an apology.
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Love Island South Africa statement
In a statement made to media outlets, a spokesperson for DStv (the distributor of Love Island South Africa) said:
We pride ourselves in reflecting diversity and inclusion for all our shows, including Love Island. The many channels and thousands of program hours we produce are testament to this.
Referring to the late entrances that are a classic part of the Love Island format, she continued:
Viewers can be assured that this will become more apparent in future episodes of Love Island SA. We hope viewers will keep watching to enjoy the new stars of the show who will be arriving over the next few days.
However, this will likely seem like too little too late for many fans who expressed their disappointment on Twitter this weekend after the first episode of the show featured a 60% white starting line-up, despite the fact that statistics say less than 10% of South Africa’s population is white.
Apology for technical issues
The spokesperson also apologised in the statement for technical issues in the first episode, saying:
We understand viewers’ disappointment in relation to the production quality and would like to apologise for the technical issues experienced yesterday and are working really hard to resolve them.
