Back to the box The show that played a broadcast blinder and turned gen Z into dedicated TV faithfuls

There aren't many plaudits left for Celebrity Traitors, which has delivered crowd-pleasing tension, ineptitude and the most famous fart in television history.

- Michael Savage

Yet for all the show's achievements, one in particular may stand out as the most impressive - a feat that TV executives across the globe have been desperate to deliver - it has got gen Z watching live television.

There has long been fretting that viewers under the age of 25 have moved away from watching once dominant linear television, lost to the algorithmic fix of digital platforms like YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.

Yet the treachery of the turret appears to have dragged them back to the sofa.

The overnight ratings for Celebrity Traitors - which measures those watching it as the show was broadcast or later that evening on iPlayer - reveal more than half of viewers aged between 16 and 24 watching TV in that timeslot watched every episode of Celebrity Traitors as it was broadcast live.

The show's finale broke records. Its overnight average audience was more than 11m, the biggest of the year and the biggest since the Gavin and Stacey special on Christmas Day. Some 81% of 16- to 24-yearolds watching linear TV during the timeslot watched it, according to the Digital i agency.

"At a time when younger audiences are increasingly turning away from live linear TV, The Traitors has grown into appointment viewing for 16- to 24-year-olds in the UK," said Matt Ross, Digital i's chief analytics officer. "The most recent iteration has been a major draw for younger viewers." The race is now on to dissect that success and see what lessons can be taken from the show - or whether its mass appeal and ability to reach younger viewers is simply an increasingly rare anomaly.

"The idea of the whole family stopping what they're doing and sitting round the telly to share in a hugely positive, joyous show is exactly what you hope for as producers," said Katy Fox, executive producer at Studio Lambert, which makes the show for the BBC.