The Traitors finale watched by more than nine million viewers

The final episode of series four of The Traitors had a peak audience of 9.6 million people, the BBC has said.

The series finale on Friday saw treacherous duo Rachel Duffy and Stephen Libby make show history after being the first pair of traitors to win the game together.

According to the broadcaster, the episode recorded an average audience of 9.4 million over the course of 75 minutes, with that number peaking to 9.6 million at one point.

The BBC said the numbers published on Saturday made it the most-watched finale in the history of the civilian version of the show, which started in 2022.

This year’s civilian version of the show has only been bettered by last year’s celebrity finale, which pulled in 11.1 million viewers.

Hosted by Claudia Winkleman, the programme follows a group of 22 contestants – the majority of whom are known as faithfuls – as they try to seek out the murderous traitors among them who kill off players in the middle of the night in an attempt to win a cash prize of up to £120,000.

On Friday, Stephen, 32, and Rachel, 42 were crowned the winners of the fourth series of the hit BBC reality gameshow after voting out every faithful during the nail-biting finale.

The pair remained faithful to each other in the endgame of the show and split the prize pot of £95,750, taking home £47,875 each.

Rachel, a director of communications from Newry in Northern Ireland, and Stephen, a cyber security consultant, originally from the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides but now living in London, were selected as traitors by Winkleman from the very beginning of the series.

Early on they decided to form a pact that they would never vote for each other and stuck to their word through to the end, remaining loyal to their alliance and winning the game as a team.

Set in the Highlands, The Traitors has been a ratings hit for the BBC since it first launched in 2022.

Its first celebrity spin-off series, which aired in the autumn, saw comedian Alan Carr snatch victory from faithful historian David Olusoga and actor Nick Mohammed in its dramatic finale.