The most popular UK dating shows, by search volume

Love Island is certainly the most popular dating show on Google with its biggest peak in search volume at over 8.3 million in July 2019 for its fifth series. That’s the same as one in eight people in the UK.

With TV dating shows all the rage, Bolton SEO agency, The Audit Lab took to Google to uncover the most popular in the UK at the time of airing, analysing 16 shows in the UK and how often we search for them on Google.

Unsurprisingly, Love Island beat out the competition significantly, with 8.3 million searches at its peak in 2019 for the fifth series. That’s the same series which saw the drama surrounding Amber Gill and Michael Griffiths, as well as the blossoming romance of Tommy Fury and Molly-Mae Hague – who are still together today. Its current average monthly search volume is 700K.

Channel 4’s Naked Attraction is the second most popular, with over 800K in searches at its peak during the first series in August 2016. Currently, its average monthly search volume is around 110K. The show’s latest series aired in 2021, and there has even been talk of a spin-off set in a hotel.

Taking third place is the UK’s Married at First Sight with just under 500K during its sixth series in September 2021, and a current average monthly search volume of around 130K, 18% higher than Naked Attraction.

Netflix’s Love Is Blind takes the fourth spot, and the most searched for dating show on a streaming platform, with just under 450K peak searches during its first series in March 2020. In fifth place is also Netflix’s Too Hot to Handle with a peak of around 300K searches during its first series in April 2020.

But can Love Island keep hold of its title amidst the launch of multiple new dating shows?

In the last couple of months alone, we’ve had the new dating show – The Language of Love – premiere on Channel 4, where Davina McCall sees a group of love-seekers live in a house in Spain. The catch being that half of them are British and the other half are Spanish with neither group speaking the other’s language. In early January, we welcomed the second series of The Cabins on ITV2, and Netflix has also brought out the third series of Too Hot to Handle in January, and a second series of its other dating hit Love Is Blind. There are even Japanese and Brazilian versions. So if there’s one thing we love here in the UK, it’s watching other people fall in love.