EXCLUSIVE: The Traitors has been revealed as comfortably the top-selling new format of the 2020s.

Analyst K7 has crunched the numbers for its latest Tracking the Unscripted Giants report and with nearly 50 adaptations, the smash hit show in which traitors hunt down faithfuls came out on top for formats created this decade.

In fact, with 47 adaptations, The Traitors makes up more than one fifth (20.8%) of new format launches around the world since the start of the decade.

Audiences worldwide are by now familiar with the conceit of a show that has most notably been adapted in the U.S. with Alan Cumming and in the UK with Claudia Winkleman. The latter just moved into the celebrity spin-off game and rolled out a star-studded Season 2 line-up over the weekend including Bella Ramsey, Myha’la and Michael Sheen.

The formats hotbed of The Netherlands, where The Traitors originated, came out well from K7’s decade-topping list – the first time such data has been compiled – with The Floor from Talpa Studios coming second at 32 adaptations since 2020. Hosted by Rob Lowe, that one airs on Fox in the U.S.

Third on the list was an intriguing French format, The A Talks, titled The Assembly in most English-speaking territories, in which famous faces like Stephen Fry, Antonio Banderas and Emmanuel Macron are grilled by autistic, neurodivergent and/or learning disabled interviewers.

The top three were well clear of the rest, with two UK formats, The 1% Club and Sort Your Life Out, coming in fourth and fifth with 18 and 12 post-2020 adaptations respectively.

If 2025 is taken on its own, The Floor topped the list, with 12 new launches versus The Traitors‘ eight, but the latter’s longevity across the decade is unsurprising given how it has dominated the zeitgeist for years now. Looking ahead, The Traitors has 16 new versions confirmed for 2026, doubling the eight currently in The Floor‘s pipeline.

The K7 report noted how The Traitors has a less concentrated global reach than The Floor, with 64% of its versions coming in Europe but the remaining 36% distributed across every major global bloc. The Floor, on the other hand, has half the “proportional intercontinental footprint.” The Traitors has also had more success with streamers than The Floor, K7 said.

The Traitors’ distributor All3Media International is about to merge with Banijay, with the K7 report revealing the pair combined will occupy around 30% of the formats market, bringing together shows including MasterChef, Survivor, Lego Masters and Race Across the World. Banijay’s sales arm occupied 22% of the new launch market last year, an impressive feat given that “no Banijay Entertainment format appears in this year’s top five most launched titles in 2025, yet it wins the distributor category by the widest margin,” according to K7. Despite the success, layoffs across both sales teams are anticipated once Banijay-All3 completes.

Big year for YouTube formats

One Banijay format that has landed success is another Dutch one, Let’s Play Ball, which emerged on YouTube.

K7 said shows like Let’s Play Ball contributed to a huge upswing in formats ordered specifically for the Google-owned behemoth.

Of more than 150 active format adaptations on streaming platforms submitted to K7, 4.6% had YouTube as their destination. That proportion is small, but the trajectory is notable. In 2024, K7 recorded just one. K7 cited other examples including spin-offs like Banijay’s MasterChef Creators and Sony Pictures Television’s digital version of Jeopardy!.

K7 said the “implications” of YouTube’s upward trajectory are beginning to play out in two directions, one being for format execs to use YouTube for existing franchises and the other being new digital-native formats that find audiences on YouTube and then shift to traditional players.

“The era of audiences sitting in front of a television at a scheduled time, waiting to be told what to watch, is long past,” K7 wrote. “For format owners, YouTube offers something qualitatively different from both linear television and subscription streaming: an open, algorithmically distributed platform where audience attention can be tested in real time, without the commissioning gatekeepers and production timelines that traditional broadcasting requires.”