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Hit British reality TV series Love Island arrives in Germany

To the bewilderment of anyone who isn't British, an incredibly generic-sounding reality TV show called Love Island took the UK by storm this summer. Will the format also be a success in Deutschland?

Hit British reality TV series Love Island arrives in Germany
The first 11 contestants for Love Island, Germany. Photo: DPA.

This Monday, 11 “heiße Singles” moved into a luxury villa in Mallorca for private TV channel RTL2's take on the reality show.

The original British reality series captured the hearts of the UK public, boasting viewing figures of 2.4 million by its finale in July.

The format involves a group of young, single contestants living isolated from the outside world in a Spanish villa. At the start, contestants couple up with the hope of being voted the winning pair and receiving a prize of €50,000.

 

After an incredible summer of love, you've chosen Kem and Amber as the worthy WINNERS of #LoveIsland 2017! ????

A post shared by Love Island (@loveisland) on Jul 24, 2017 at 2:33pm PDT

The drama starts as, at various stages, new “islanders” are brought in, individuals are voted off, and “islanders” are forced to choose whether or not to “re-couple.”

Love Island Germany is on air for around three weeks, finishing with a live finale on October 2nd.

This is much less of a commitment and drain on viewers social lives than its UK counterpart, which aired every night for eight weeks.

The series started this Monday on RTL2 but if you missed the first two episodes, you can still catch up online.

The huge success of Love Island UK this year has not only led to a German series, but also inspired Fox to reboot 'Temptation Island', the show's American equivalent, as well as spin off TV shows within the UK itself.

With Love Island just getting started on RTL2, all that's left to see is whether the show is Germany's “type on paper” or “a little bit leave it.”

BUSINESS

Google News to return to Spain after seven-year spat

Google announced Wednesday the reopening of its news service in Spain next year after the country amended a law that imposed fees on aggregators such as the US tech giant for using publishers’ content.

Google News to return to Spain after seven-year spat
Google argues its news site drives readers to Spanish newspaper and magazine websites and thus helps them generate advertising revenue.Photo: Kenzo TRIBOUILLARD / AFP

The service closed in Spain in December 2014 after legislation passed requiring web platforms such as Google and Facebook to pay publishers to reproduce content from other websites, including links to their articles that describe a story’s content.

But on Tuesday the Spanish government approved a European Union copyright law that allows third-party online news platforms to negotiate directly with content providers regarding fees.

This means Google no longer has to pay a fee to Spain’s entire media industry and can instead negotiate fees with individual publishers.

Writing in a company blog post on Wednesday, Google Spain country manager Fuencisla Clemares welcomed the government move and announced that as a result “Google News will soon be available once again in Spain”.

“The new copyright law allows Spanish media outlets — big and small — to make their own decisions about how their content can be discovered and how they want to make money with that content,” she added.

“Over the coming months, we will be working with publishers to reach agreements which cover their rights under the new law.”

News outlets struggling with dwindling print subscriptions have long seethed at the failure of Google particularly to pay them a cut of the millions it makes from ads displayed alongside news stories.

Google argues its news site drives readers to newspaper and magazine websites and thus helps them generate advertising revenue and find new subscribers.

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