The Death of Viral TV, or Is It

Last week I finally bit the bullet and started watching Celebrity Traitors. I’ve never watched the normal version, and after last year I felt it was easier to actually watch the program rather than tell everyone I wasn’t. I’m not really a ‘reality TV’ person, and the Traitors had just never appealed to me. I’d seen clips online, but it just never really appealed to me. This time last year though, it was almost unbearable to not watch the show. It was seemingly the only topic of conversation across the UK, and every day a different person would explain to me in great detail how the show worked and how I definitely watched it. I wasn’t being stubborn or trying to be unique, I was just very busy and that wasn’t the TV show I wanted to watch at the end of the day. 

I think we’ve hit a very weird point with TV. It’s pretty widely accepted that streaming has been the death of broadcast television. Consumption has moved from anticipating one episode a week, to bringing whole boxsets in an evening. The abundance of content on streaming platforms would have been unthinkable even 20 years ago, and we’re able to access foreign TV shows far more readily. As the BBC has tried desperately to catch up, they’ve pivoted to a dual model of uploading whole boxsets onto iPlayer while still showing them an episode at a time on TV. On one level, that does keep everyone happy, but it’s driving a wedge between generations. Even if you’re watching the same TV show as your older work colleague, there’s a good chance that you finished it 6 or even 8 weeks before they saw the series finale. Water cooler TV has been in rapid decline, and watching shows is increasingly an individual activity rather than part of a shared culture. 

Without a doubt, this has hit British TV hard. Viewing figures for shows like Strictly Come Dancing and Britain’s Got Talent which were huge in the 2010s have dwindled, and legendary shows like X-Factor aren’t even produced anymore. The problem may well be because of the fine line between changing a show so drastically that fans are annoyed, and sticking to a format that becomes entirely predictable. Changing judging line ups or presenters alone isn’t enough to keep people interested as the years turn into decades, and currently the majority of big TV shows feel stale. I sometimes feel like the only person my age who watches ‘proper’ TV shows live as they’re broadcast on TV, until the Traitors and the Celebrity Traitors.

Enter the Traitors in Winter 2022, and all of a sudden viral TV was back. The format clearly captured imaginations, and the show has grown from an average audience of 3.74 to 11.63 million in just 4 series. Last year’s Celebrity Traitors finale received an average audience of 14.94 million people. It was the most watched program of 2025, and had nearly 3 million more viewers than the Coronation of King Charles. 

What has been so surprising about the Traitors, and particularly the Celebrity version, has been its ability to return to a monoculture not seen since streaming. The episodes aren’t dropped on iPlayer in advance, and only two or three episodes are broadcast each week. People are forced to wait and actually watch it at the same time, which has blossomed this pervasive culture where everyone actually sits down to watch the Traitors when it's on. While shows like Strictly are obviously broadcast live, they’ve not been able to retain a viewer culture as the years go by. The difference for the Traitors is that they’ve built it from scratch, with social media at its disposal from the offset. They don’t yet rely on nostalgia or forced seasonality, which I think has meant for a lot of viewers the show has felt more authentic. The other ace card for the Traitors is their ability to tweak their own format. It's easy to add twists that keep people viewing year on year. 

The Traitors has bucked trends in an era when less and less people are consuming broadcast TV, but unfortunately I think this is a one off rather than return to old ways. The circumstances that have created this viral sensation aren’t something that have been replicated successfully, despite numerous attempts by other channels, and even the BBC themselves with Destination X. It’s nice for there to be a TV show that is bringing people together, hence I’ve finally relented and will watch so I can join in with the rest of the UK even if its success may be a one off in the streaming era.

Written by, Eleanor Patamia