Strictly Come Dancing suffers major blow in BBC ratings war

BBC's hit star-studded competition series is one of the most highly anticipated shows of the year as viewers eagerly await the full line-up of celebrities geared to take on the glitzy dancefloor. As well as watching the famous faces progress in ability, Strictly Come Dancing also serves as a major countdown towards the festive season, as the series 23 champion will raise the highly coveted Glitterball trophy just five days before Christmas Day. This year, Strictly kicked off in September following a string of scandals which threatened to plague the series.

However, this wasn't the case as millions tuned in for the launch show, which saw the 15 celebrities meet their professional partners for the first time. The overnight figures revealed that the 2025 launch matched the 2024 episode, peaking at 5.6million viewers and averaging 5.4million across the 90-minute show. Although this number has continued to rise, Strictly has failed to compete against the other show also fronted by Claudia Winkleman, The Celebrity Traitors.

The Traitors' first-ever star-studded spin-off has swept the nation as 19 celebrities, including Stephen Fry, Celia Imrie, Kate Garraway, and Alan Carr, took on the gripping game of deception.

Divided into Faithfuls and Traitors, the stars must play the game to gain trust and remain undetectable to win a cash prize for charity.

The series has proved to be hugely successful, garnering almost double the number of viewers as Strictly Come Dancing.

According to BARB, Celebrity Traitors dominated BBC viewership ratings at its third episode, topping the leaderboard with a whopping 13,229,100 viewers.

In second place is the show's fourth episode, which saw sports presenter Clare Balding banished from the castle, and attracted 12,851,300 viewers.

Trawling behind is Strictly's seventh episode that saw 7,379,400 people tune in, while 7,379,400 switched on for its eighth episode.

Although these recent figures weren't a match against Celebrity Traitors, it marks a huge drop for Strictly, as series 23's first live episode pulled in 7,693,500 viewers.

This comes as Strictly hosts Claudia and Tess Daly dropped a major bombshell and announced they will be stepping away from the show after series 23.

In their joint statement, the duo shared: "We have loved working as a duo and hosting Strictly has been an absolute dream. We were always going to leave together and now feels like the right time.

"We will have the greatest rest of this amazing series and we just want to say an enormous thank you to the BBC and to every single person who works on the show. They're the most brilliant team and we'll miss them every day.

"We will cry when we say the last 'keep dancing' but we will continue to say it to each other. Just possibly in tracksuit bottoms at home while holding some pizza. Tess & Claud."