Celebrity Traitors semi-final draws series-high 10.7 million peak, BBC format without script or actors beats costly drama in ratings, finale airs Friday as James Acaster is banished

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The Celebrity Traitors semi-final drew the highest peak audience of the series, with 10.7 million viewers tuning in, as comedian James Acaster was banished from the castle after admitting to his fellow players that he was a traitor. The penultimate episode averaged 10.3 million viewers with a 62 percent share, according to the BBC, ahead of Friday night's final on BBC One.

The numbers keep climbing. The second celebrity series premiered at the start of October as the most-watched debut of any edition of the programme in the UK, averaging 8.9 million with a peak of 9.1 million. The first celebrity series finale hit a peak of 15.4 million viewers last year — the biggest TV audience of 2025. The civilian edition, launched in 2022, drew a 9.6 million peak for its most recent finale.

The format requires no actors, no script and no expensive rights packages: twenty-one celebrity contestants at a Scottish castle trying to identify the traitors among them, who "kill off" players in the middle of the night, with Claudia Winkleman hosting. The show is a Dutch import that the BBC has turned into its most reliable entertainment property, out-rating dramas with per-episode budgets that dwarf the cost of a castle, some cloaks and a roundtable.

The finale airs at 8pm Friday, when the BBC will learn how many of the ten million who watched Acaster confess return for the payout.

The most profitable drama on British television turns out to be twenty celebrities lying to each other.