THE Only Way Is Essex will be getting a Christmas special again this year after its huge success last series.
The ITV2 show will air season 36 this autumn, followed by a festive spin-off towards the end of the year.
The Christmas special has not always been guaranteed, but after last year's explosive dinner party, bosses are keen to replicate the same fiery drama and meltdowns.
A source told The Sun: "In the past, the show has skipped the festive episodes for a few years, but it recently returned and has been on a series by series basis.
"They review it each year and decide - it comes down to a lot of stuff, including budgets and also how much good footage they get while shooting the previous series.
"At the moment, as everyone knows, cash is quite tight at ITV and they have made some big cutbacks across the board, including, most famously, across ITV Daytime.
"But Towie is still a flagship show for ITV2 and bosses have decided to do another Christmas special.
"The latest series they shot is really juicy and they are thrilled with it, so they definitely want to capture more drama to go out over the party season."
The Sun has reached out to ITV for comment
Towie bosses are set to share the official announcement closer to the time - but it is said to be full steam ahead.
The Sun has reached out to ITV for comment.
The new series will feature Celebrity Big Brother star Ella Rae Wise's reunion with Dancing On Ice's Dan Edgar since their split.
Fans will also get to see Junaid Ahmed and Joe Blackman take the next step in their relationship.
But viewers will have to wait a little longer before they see Amy Childs and Billy Delbosq walk down the aisle, after she announced that she was postponing her wedding until next year.
With ITVBe now closing, the programme is returning to its original home on ITV2 from Autumn 2025.
Ahead of the move, TOWIE will be reverting to airing twice a week.
It will see a new midweek episode joining the usual Sunday instalment.
This was the show's original screening pattern but it reverted to one episode per week back in 2018.
A source said: “ITV want to make a big splash with the show returning to its original home on ITV2 with the closure of ITVBe.
"It’s one of their flagship shows and it’s still one of ITVX’s most streamed shows with 66 million streams in the last 12 months alone.
"Bosses think it’s high time the show was reinstated to airing twice a week, just like it did in its original heyday.
"It’s amazing news for fans who will be getting double their fix of drama, and the cast are thrilled too.
"It’s a huge vote of confidence in the show after all these years on air.”
Earlier this year, it was revealed bosses were making ITV2 the home of reality TV, with all future series broadcasting from there.
An insider said at the time: "ITV has seen incredible success and record breaking numbers of viewers on ITV2, so following that success they'll be shutting ITVBe and moving Towie onto ITV2, which will now be the home of reality.
"ITVBe shuts in June, then the new series of Towie will debut on ITV2 in Autumn."
