Where to Watch The Celebrity Traitors Series 2: BBC One, iPlayer and Times

If you have been looking for Celebrity Traitors season 2, the BBC calls it series 2 — same show, British numbering — and it now has a date. It starts on Thursday 1 October 2026 at 8pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer. The part most guides skip is that there is not one programme to find but three, on three different services at three different times, and that the thing standing between you and all of them is not a subscription but a TV Licence.

When does The Celebrity Traitors series 2 start, and where?

Thursday 1 October 2026, 8pm, on BBC One and BBC iPlayer simultaneously. The BBC confirmed the date on 15 September, alongside a new trailer.

After launch night it settles into a twice-weekly pattern: Thursday and Friday evenings at 8pm. It is a ten-episode series, hosted by Claudia Winkleman as before, with 21 celebrities competing for up to £100,000 for charities of their choice. It was filmed at Ardross Castle in the Scottish Highlands, the castle the UK franchise has used before.

Do you need a TV Licence to watch The Celebrity Traitors?

Yes — for every route to it, including catch-up. This is the one thing worth settling before launch night, because the answer is not the same as it is for a streaming subscription.

GOV.UK states the rule in two parts: you need a TV Licence to watch or record programmes as they are broadcast on any channel or service, and to watch on-demand BBC programmes on iPlayer. There is no version of watching this show that falls outside that.

A TV Licence costs £180 a year. Reduced and free licences exist for people aged 75 or over who receive Pension Credit, and for people who are blind or in residential care. In a shared house with separate tenancy agreements, each person watching in their own room needs their own.

That makes the real cost of following this series, for somebody who does not already hold one, considerably more than a month of any streaming service — and it is the same £180 whether you watch one episode or all ten.

What are the three Celebrity Traitors programmes?

The main show, a companion show and an iPlayer-only special. They are not all in the same place, and only one of them is on at 8pm.

The special is the one people will miss. Traitor or Faithful? Claudia Decides is not broadcast at all — it goes to BBC iPlayer from 9.15pm on launch night, and if you only watch BBC One you will never see it appear.

Where do you watch Uncloaked?

Three ways, and one of them is audio. The Celebrity Traitors: Uncloaked returns with Ed Gamble hosting, and it goes out on BBC One immediately after the main episode rather than on a different night.

It is also on BBC iPlayer, and — the part worth knowing — on BBC Sounds. That gives you a listen-only route to the after-show, which is useful if you want the post-mortem without sitting through another hour of television. The main show itself does not have that option.

When is each episode on?

Thursdays and Fridays at 8pm, starting 1 October, for ten episodes. The first two land on 1 and 2 October.

The BBC has published the pattern rather than a dated list, so beyond those first two nights the sensible thing is to count Thursdays and Fridays forward and check iPlayer nearer the time. Reality formats move for live events and sport more often than dramas do, and a published pattern is a weaker commitment than a published schedule.

That twice-weekly rhythm is worth planning around for a different reason: this is a format where the result of each episode is the entire point, and a two-day gap between episodes is a short window in which to avoid finding out. If that matters to you, watching live or on iPlayer the same evening is the only reliable protection.

Wasn’t it supposed to start on 23 September?

No, and that date came from a slip rather than a schedule. On 5 September a podcast host said the series would begin on 23 September; the BBC denied it, and the confirmed date announced ten days later is 1 October.

It is worth stating plainly because the wrong date travelled widely before the right one existed, and anyone who filed it away in early September is currently a week out. If you see 23 September anywhere, it predates the announcement.

Can you watch The Celebrity Traitors outside the UK?

Not through any of the routes above. BBC One and BBC iPlayer are UK services, and the licence that makes them work is a UK licence.

No overseas broadcaster or streaming home has been announced for series 2. Previous series have turned up on various international services after their UK runs, but that is a matter of individual deals rather than a single global release, so there is no date to give you. We are not going to point you at a workaround; if you are outside the UK, the honest answer is to wait and watch for a local announcement.

For a sense of how differently two public-service broadcasters handle the same problem, our guide to Ludwig series 2 covers a BBC drama where full episodes appeared on iPlayer before their BBC One broadcast dates — the opposite of the live-first approach this show takes. And if you follow reality competition formats generally, Dancing with the Stars runs on a broadcast-plus-streaming split that works nothing like the BBC’s.

The bottom line

Thursday 1 October, 8pm, BBC One and iPlayer, then Thursdays and Fridays for ten episodes. Stay up for Uncloaked straight afterwards on the same channel, or listen to it on BBC Sounds later. Open iPlayer from 9.15pm on launch night for the special that is never broadcast. And if you do not already have a TV Licence, sort that out first, because all three of those need one and none of them will work without it.