The Traitors' smashes ratings as launch episode draws in 5.4million viewers despite MAJOR technical issue

The Traitors' smashed ratings as the hit BBC series returned to screens on New Year's Day, with Claudia Winkleman back at the helm. The Traitors' smashed ratings as the hit BBC series returned to screens on New Year's Day, with Claudia Winkleman back at the helm An impressive 5.4million viewers tuned in to watch the hotly-anticipated series, beating last year's 3.1million The financial Investigator, 27, was chosen by host Claudia Winkleman as one of the first Traitors along with Minah and Linda. ', It came as The Traitors fans hailed a brutal twist minutes into the first episode before host Claudia revealed another major change to the game. The series was even met with a technical fault as fans rushed to watch episode two on BBC iPlayer, minutes after the opening episode aired The show sees several Traitors be picked at the start of the series while the other contestants are Faithfuls Over the course of the game the Traitors have to convince the rest of the players that they are Faithful in order to try and steal the whole prize pot for themselves at the end Armani was branded the 'worst Traitor of all time' as viewers watched the first episode of the new series on Wednesday night The financial Investigator, 27, was chosen by host Claudia Winkleman as one of the first Traitors along with Minah and Linda But as the episode went on many fans were left convinced she would be found out early on as she was 'talking too much' Viewers said of Armani on Twitter : 'Armani has got to be the worst Traitor of all time. ', The first round table kicked off at the end of the episode as the contestants had to vote for one person they think is a Traitor 'This series is going to be absolute chaos, 3 gone before they even reached the castle, tears in the first 5 minutes, someone trying to keep up a fake Welsh accent as it sounds trustworthy plus one Traitor already throwing another under the bus.