<\/p>\n
There are not many plaudits left for The Celebrity Traitors, which has delivered tension, crowd-pleasing ineptitude and the most famous fart in television history<\/a>.<\/p>\n Yet for all the show\u2019s achievements, one in particular \u2013 a feat that TV executives across the globe have been desperate to deliver \u2013 may stand out as the most impressive: it has got gen Z watching live TV.<\/p>\n There has long been fretting that viewers under the age of 25 have moved away from watching once-dominant linear television<\/a>, lost to the algorithmic fix of digital platforms such as YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. Yet the treachery of the turret appears to have dragged them back to the TV.<\/p>\n The overnight ratings for The Celebrity Traitors \u2013 which measures the number of people watching live or later that evening on iPlayer reveal that more than half of the people aged between 16 and 24 viewing the show within that time slot watched every episode of The Celebrity Traitors as it was broadcast.<\/p>\n The show\u2019s finale broke records. Its overnight average audience was more than 11 million, the biggest of the year and the biggest since the Gavin & Stacey special on Christmas Day. It was watched by 81% of the viewers aged 16-24 who were watching linear TV in that time slot, according to Digital i.<\/p>\n The Celebrity Traitors viewing figures for 16- to 24-year-olds watching linear TV in that time slot<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cAt a time when younger audiences are increasingly turning away from live linear TV, The Traitors<\/a> has grown into appointment viewing for 16- to 24-year-olds in the UK,\u201d said Matt Ross, Digital i\u2019s chief analytics officer. \u201cThe most recent iteration has been a major draw for younger viewers.\u201d<\/p>\n The race is now on to dissect that success and see what lessons can be taken from the show \u2013 or whether its mass appeal and ability to reach younger viewers is simply an increasingly rare anomaly.<\/p>\n Katy Fox, executive producer at Studio Lambert, which makes the show for the BBC<\/a>, said: \u201cThe idea of the whole family stopping what they\u2019re doing and sitting round the telly to share in a hugely positive, joyous show is exactly what you hope for as producers.<\/p>\n \u201cThe best thing about the 16- to 24-year-olds taking to Traitors so faithfully is just the sheer amount of energy and creativity they bring to fandom \u2013 from memes to videos to Halloween costumes and everything in between \u2013 it\u2019s fantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Cat Burns, Claudia Winkleman, Alan Carr, Nick Mohammed, David Olusoga and Joe Marler during The Celebrity Traitors final, which broke records.<\/span> Photograph: Paul Chappells\/BBC\/Studio Lambert<\/p>\n The show\u2019s success is timely for the BBC after concerns were raised about its long-term appeal to gen Z. Just this week, Jordan Schwarzenberger, the manager of the hugely successful YouTube collective the Sidemen<\/a>, said the corporation risked becoming culturally irrelevant to young audiences<\/a>.<\/p>\n Industry insiders say there are plenty of lessons to be learned from The Celebrity Traitors. They point to its \u201calways on\u201d appeal, with the live show acting almost like a live sports event, with an official podcast, numerous clipped moments and an embrace of fan-made memes and content meaning there is always Traitors-related material to consume during the week.<\/p>\n Kate Phillips, the BBC\u2019s chief content officer who first commissioned the programme, said her initial interest in the show was born out of the pandemic, when she felt the need to find shows that brought people together. Since then, she says the show, which began as a Dutch format, grew rapidly by word of mouth across the generations \u2013 a key measure for the BBC, tasked with providing content with mass appeal.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I want is shows that have the 3Gs at their heart,\u201d she said. \u201cBy that, I mean shows that have three generations of people all watching together. One thing I\u2019ve taken away is that, actually, young people really love to watch with their parents, with their grandparents. People really appreciate it.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Alan Carr was the eventual winner of The Celebrity Traitors.<\/span> Photograph: Euan Cherry\/BBC\/Studio Lambert<\/p>\n As for why the show had reached younger viewers, she pointed to partnerships with TikTok, linking the platform directly with iPlayer. She also says the show\u2019s social strategy was \u201cbuilt with the under-35s, and particularly the under-24s, firmly in mind\u201d. The show has been endlessly clipped, while the BBC has also been relaxed about fans jumping in and making their own viral content.<\/p>\n Phillips said for all the talk of linear TV\u2019s declining importance, The Celebrity Traitors also demonstrated how the medium could still play a critical role as a \u201cshop window\u201d for the best content.<\/p>\n \u201cCelebrity Traitors can be on linear TV, but it evolves into a cross-platform, shared experience that feels very current, very fun and very unfiltered,\u201d she said. \u201cThe memes and the comments \u2013 it\u2019s like a kind of second entertainment show running alongside the main show.\u201d<\/p>\n Jon Willers, a media consultant who has been thinking about how to reach gen Z, said the show\u2019s success pointed to the industry\u2019s need to reinvent and reskill itself for the social media age. \u201cIt\u2019s one of those few shows that bridges two different worlds,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s a digital world, which skews younger and it\u2019s more about socials and less about watching traditional telly. Then you\u2019ve got the traditional world, which is about seeing what\u2019s on at 9pm.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are very few instances at the moment where a show can kind of penetrate both of those places. There needs to be more shows that have that vision and that ambition. It shows that people aren\u2019t necessarily leaving TV. They\u2019re leaving TV that doesn\u2019t really speak to them.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve all been very siloed up to this point. TV producers make TV programmes. Social creators make content on socials. Broadcasters are essentially the publishers and help with marketing. TV producers are now trying to be much more multi-platform.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>The Celebrity Traitors presenter Claudia Winkleman. The makers of the show say casting is crucial.<\/span> Photograph: Euan Cherry\/BBC\/Studio Lambert<\/p>\n In fact, The Celebrity Traitors is not the only big hit to find an audience with gen Z, as traditional broadcasters attempt to adapt to the different ways in which they find and dissect their chosen shows.<\/p>\n The prime example is Dancing With the Stars, the US version of Strictly Come Dancing. It was once on a par with other reality formats, but has now found itself as the dominant title in the genre. It did so by embracing online culture by using viral songs, bringing in dancers with a big social media presence and broadening the cast.<\/p>\n \u201cDancing With the Stars leaned heavily into the creator ecosystem \u2013 casting creators as contestants,\u201d said Evan Shapiro, a Hollywood producer turned leading analyst on the creator economy. \u201cIt obviously paid off,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n \u201cCelebrity Traitors collected a truly fascinating cross-section of entertainment culture in the UK and then leaned heavily into creator ethos \u2013 clipping the show ad nauseam, encouraging user-generated content.\u201d<\/p>\n He said it was proof that big broadcasters and titles could adapt to changing consumption. \u201cThe mindset of successful crossover IP [from TV to social media] is \u2018the show is the clip and the clip is the show \u2013 and together they are the show\u2019. It\u2019s all proof that when big publishers act like creators, they can be dominant creators themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n For The Celebrity Traitors, its makers say casting was crucial and included the likes of Niko Omilana, who has more than 8 million subscribers on YouTube, though he left the game early on.<\/p>\n <\/span>Nick Mohammed during the final roundtable. <\/span> Photograph: BBC<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve always believed that The Traitors is a format that can appeal to every generation, and have always tried to reflect that in our casting,\u201d said Fox. \u201cHaving a celebrity cast with a broad range of ages and personalities meant we were confident younger viewers would identify with cast members they already know \u2026 and maybe even get to know national treasures they didn\u2019t! We\u2019re delighted with the results.\u201d<\/p>\n For others in the industry, the discussion about how to keep younger audiences tuned in is complicating a simple equation. In show business, the golden rule still stands \u2013 it is all about hits.<\/p>\n Peter Fincham, co-CEO of the production company Expectation and co-hosts the podcast Insiders TV, said: \u201cThe most powerful form of marketing is always going to be word of mouth. It\u2019s in the conversation at home, at work, at school.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen that happens, you get young people watching. What is maybe a little bit more unusual in the modern age is what you would call an old-fashioned, mainstream hit that gets everybody talking.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m quite wary of the trend analysis. This is the simplest thing in the world. Have a great big hit and you will get a lot of people viewing it of all ages. That was true 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.theguardian.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There are not many plaudits left for The Celebrity Traitors, which has delivered tension, crowd-pleasing ineptitude and the most famous fart in television history. Yet for all the show\u2019s achievements, one in particular \u2013 a feat that TV executives across the globe have been desperate to deliver \u2013 may stand out as the most impressive: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2176412,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2176411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/How-The-Celebrity-Traitors-reversed-TVs-most-troubling-trend.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2176411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2176411"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2176411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2176413,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2176411\/revisions\/2176413"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2176412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2176411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2176411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2176411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}