‘The Traitors’ and How to Craft Hit Reality TV in 2025

The Town with Matthew Belloni

The Ringer

Society & Culture

4.3 • 847 Ratings

🗓️ 22 August 2025

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Live from the Edinburgh TV Festival in Scotland, Matt is joined by television producer and executive Stephen Lambert to discuss the current state of reality TV, his newest hit, ‘The Traitors,' how to cast reality competition, what streamers are looking for in 2025, how that's changed, and whether America is falling behind in creating fresh reality formats (02:11). For a 20 percent discount on Matt’s Hollywood insider newsletter, ‘What I’m Hearing ...,’ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Email us your thoughts! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Host: Matt Belloni Guest: Stephen Lambert Producers: Craig Horlbeck and Jessie Lopez Theme Song: Devon Renaldo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	A wise man once said in this world, nothing can be certain except death taxes and your boy
0:05.9	Johnny Bananas. Welcome to the brand new Death Taxes and Bananas channel where we'll be
0:11.0	recapping season 41 of the challenge every week with all your favorite cast members. I'm going to dive
0:16.1	deep into the drama, get every side of every story, and tell stories about behind the scenes on set antics.
0:23.7	So, follow Death Taxes and Bananas on Spotify, where you can watch every episode or
0:28.7	subscribe to YouTube.com at Death Taxes, Bananas on YouTube.
0:35.8	It is Friday, August 22nd.
0:38.3	Hello from Edinburgh, Scotland.
0:40.3	I'm here for the Edinburgh TV Festival, which is a big international television conference,
0:45.3	all the big players inscripted and unscripted TV, get together, panels, keynotes.
0:49.3	I went to a dinner with a view of a castle, lots of scotch, and it coincides with the fringe comedy festival.
0:55.4	So there's great showcases at night. Both Fleabag and Baby Rain Deer started as performances here.
1:01.3	Anyway, as part of the festival, I did a fun keynote Q&A today with Stephen Lambert, a major player in the global unscripted TV business.
1:08.5	If you don't know, Stephen, he's the former documentary producer
1:11.0	behind two of the very few British production companies that have been truly international.
1:15.5	RDF television in the 2000s. They did WifeSwap and Secret Millionaire, among others.
1:20.7	And then since 2008, Studio Lambert, which is now owned by all three media.
1:25.1	He's done undercover boss, the Squid Game Competition Show,
1:28.3	and he's got a huge breakout with the Traders,
1:30.8	which is the reigning champion at the Emmys
1:32.9	and is up for outstanding reality competition show at this year's Emmys.
1:36.3	We talked a lot about that show, both the UK and US version,
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 19 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Ringer, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Ringer and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.