The Traitors | Series 3 Preview (BBC One)

The multi-award-winning hit psychological game format The Traitors, hosted by Claudia Winkleman, returns to BBC One and iPlayer on New Year's Day at 8pm with its third series. The show has also been recommissioned for a fourth series and celebrity version.

The Traitors, made by Studio Lambert Scotland, is an intense psychological game in which players must decide who they can trust. In each episode, the players work together to complete spectacular physical and mental missions.

If they are successful, they add money to a prize pot, which is worth up to £120,000. But to win the prize pot, players must survive to the end of the game – they must avoid being ‘murdered’ or ‘banished’.

At the start of the game, a small number of players are secretly selected by Claudia to be The Traitors. The rest of the players are known as ‘The Faithful’ and none of The Faithful know who The Traitors are.

Players are eliminated in one of two ways; each night, The Traitors meet in secret and decide to ‘murder’ one of The Faithful and next morning when the group meet for breakfast the ‘murdered’ player does not appear.

Then, later in the day, all the players meet at the ‘Round Table’ and decide to ‘banish’ a player they suspect of being a Traitor. Whomever they pick will then reveal if they are indeed a Traitor or a Faithful.

At the end of the game, the few remaining players will share the prize pot if they are all Faithful, but if there is still a Traitor among them, the Traitor takes all the prize money.

Since the series debuted on BBC One and BBC iPlayer in 2022, the show has established a 100% faithful audience. A breakout hit at series one, series two saw phenomenal growth with 46m views on BBC iPlayer and an average of 8.1m views per episode. The Traitors continues to be the biggest new Entertainment brand in the market for 16-34’s.

Kalpna Patel-Knight, Head of Entertainment at the BBC says: “The Traitors has well and truly established itself as an unmissable highlight of the year and the news of a fourth outing, alongside a brand new celebrity version coming to the BBC, will take the series to a whole new level. It will once again be fascinating for our audiences to see who’ll outwit, outplay, and outlast. Let the mind games begin!"

Mike Cotton, Creative Director Unscripted at Studio Lambert and Executive Producer for The Traitors says: “We are thrilled to be inviting some celebrities into our castle to come and play the game. Seeing famous faces navigate the round table or don the infamous green cloaks will be unmissable TV, and what a double treat for the fans with Series 4 also confirmed too. There's a whole lot of exciting treachery and deception yet to come from the Highlands… Claudia’s going to have to pack some extra knitwear.”

In addition to news of a fourth series and celebrity version, leading podcast agency Listen will be producing 12 brand new episodes of companion show The Traitors: Uncloaked which will return alongside the third series of The Traitors. Once hosted again by comedian Ed Gamble, The Traitors: Uncloaked will be available via BBC Sounds and on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer.

The Traitors returns Wednesday 1st January at 8pm on BBC One.