Ljubav je na selu

Ljubav je na selu (English: Love is at the Countryside) is a Croatian reality television series based on the British television series Farmer Wants a Wife. The series follows farmers from rural parts of Croatia looking for romantic partners.

The series premiered on 4 September 2008 on RTL. It is one of the longest-running Croatian reality series, having entered its seventeenth season in May 2024.

Format
For every new season, RTL broadcasts an episode where a set of farmers introduce themselves and their farms to the viewers. The farmers are usually male, but so far three female farmers haven been featured throughout the series as well. After the episode airs, the viewers can apply to meet the farmer of their liking by contacting RTL via e-mail or phone. The viewers are required to write a letter where they introduce themselves to the farmer.

A few months later, after the application period expires, the farmers who received the most letters from the viewers qualify for participating in the series. The farmers get to meet the candidates that expressed interest in them in front of the cameras and invite a few of them (usually three to four) to their farms, where most of the series takes place. As the season progresses, farmers eliminate candidates one by one, until selecting a single candidate whom they take on a romantic journey.

Hosts
The series employs a host who guides the farmers and their candidates through the series. The hosts brings the letters to the farmers and occasionally visits their farms through the season to check on the progress of their relationships with the candidates.

Croatian actress and former television host Lorena Nosić hosted the first two seasons of the show, until Marijana Batinić took over and hosted the show from season 3 to 12. In March 2021, RTL announced that Anita Martinović is taking the role of the host starting from the show's 13th season.

Broadcast and release
The series is a part of RTL's staple programming, having been on air uninterruptedly since 2008. Excluding the network's news programming, it is RTL's second longest-running original series, following culinary series Večera za 5 (Croatian iteration of Come Dine with Me), which has been on air since 2007.

For the first six seasons, the series employed a weekly format with one episode a week being aired. Since the show's seventh season, which premiered in 2016, the series airs several episodes a week. As of September 2023, with the premiere of the show's 16th season, RTL's streaming service Voyo releases each episode 24 hours before their television broadcast. As of 2019, the series also airs in Slovenia on Pop TV.

Success and impact
The show's main goal, which is to help farmers find love, was achieved numerous times with several romantic relationships of past participants continuing off-screen. By 2021, seventeen couples that meet on-screen got married after the show; eighteen children were born out of these marriages.

Some participants of the show through the years gained attention from the Croatian public and media, becoming instant celebrities. Most notable examples include Nevenka Bekavac, a season 5 participant, whose bold personality attracted several Croatian outlets to write about her personal life after the series. In 2020, Bahra Zahirović was quickly dubbed "the star of season 12" by numerous media due to her unique personality. As reported by 24sata, her unique expressions became known as "Bahrizmi" (Bahrisms).

Controversies
As season 13 started airing in April 2021, one of the farmers was met with a negative reaction from the public due to his tattoo that contained Schutzstaffel's motto. RTL issued a public statement saying that all of the farmer's scenes will be completely removed for the rest of the season's broadcast. Another farmer was disqualified shortly after he was introduced as one of season 14 farmers in June 2021. The disqualification occurred after RTL discovered that he omitted the fact that he has a child and lied about his mother abandoning him at the age of 13.

A season 15 episode aired in April 2023 featured a farmer eliminating one of the female candidates by violently throwing cake into her face. Given the negative tensions between the farmer and the candidate, the fans deemed it violence against women and reprimanded RTL for airing such content. RTL issued a public statement expressing that the farmer's act of throwing cake was internet as a joke. The scene was removed from the re-run of the episode the following day and from the episode's release on RTL's streaming service (then RTL Play).