RATINGS: THE TRAITORS RETURNS TO BBC ONE WITH OVER 5 MILLION

The multi-award-winning hit psychological game format The Traitors, hosted by Claudia Winkleman, returned to BBC One and iPlayer on New Year's Day with its third series.

The opening episode was watched by an overnight audience of 5.1m from 8pm on BBC One, with a peak audience of 5.4m.

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.

The Traitors continues tonight (Thursday 2nd January) at 8pm on BBC One. Stream the episode now on BBC iPlayer.