How to Get Commissions Using Proof Over Pitch
Why The Traitors cracked the format code, and what it tells us about how all successful formats actually work.
Before I go any further, I want to be transparent about something.
That title is doing exactly what this article is about.
It implies I have inside knowledge. A method. A key that most people in the industry don’t have. It’s designed to make you feel that reading this will close a gap between what you know and what I know.
That’s information asymmetry. And you just experienced it before you read a single word of the argument.
I’m not embarrassed about that. It’s how almost every successful format, headline, pitch document, and commission meeting works. The point of this post is to name the mechanism, because once you can name it, you can use it deliberately rather than stumbling across it by accident.
In my last post I wrote about proof over pitch. The idea that evidence of audience interest now carries more weight in a commission meeting than a strong idea alone. Commissioners are under pressure. They want to reduce risk. Proof reduces risk.
Wordle is becoming a TV game show. Played by millions, born on a newspaper website, shared every morning on social media. That’s not a pitch. That’s proof. And it’s a perfect place to start.
Three types of proof
Not all proof is the same. There are broadly three types.
1. Proof by numbers. The audience already exists on another platform. Wordle. Gaming IP. Social media phenomena. You’re not asking a commissioner to imagine an audience. You’re showing them one.
2. Proof by precedent. It’s worked before. Every reboot, revival, and returning format conversation is built on this. The risk is known. The upside is familiar.
3. Proof by trend. A format demonstrates that something in the culture is ready to be television right now. The audience is primed. The moment has arrived.
The Traitors is proof by trend. Its success didn’t just prove that one format worked. It proved that a particular structural mechanic had found its cultural moment. And that opened a much bigger conversation about what else could be built on the same engine.
What that mechanic actually is
Economists call it information asymmetry. It describes any situation where one group holds knowledge that another group doesn’t. Markets distort around it. Negotiations turn on it. The 2001 economics Nobel was awarded partly for formalising how it works in practice.
In The Traitors, the mechanism is explicit. A small group knows they are traitors. Everyone else doesn’t. Every conversation is an attempt to either protect or expose that gap. There are no physical challenges. No talent being judged. The drama is entirely about who knows what, and who is pretending not to know.
Once you see it as a structural mechanic rather than a format concept, something important becomes clear. The Traitors didn’t invent this. It just made the mechanism visible.
It runs through everything
Look at the formats that have sustained audiences over decades and the same engine is running underneath, often quietly.
The Traitors — Traitors know their identity. Faithfuls don’t. The whole game is the gap.
Bake Off — What do great bakers know that struggling ones don’t? Failure makes the gap public. That’s the tension.
Got Talent / The Voice — Judges know what success sounds like. Contestants hope they do. The audition is a knowledge test.
Gardening and cookery formats — The expert holds knowledge the viewer lacks. The show exists to close that gap. That’s the entire value proposition.
The Mole — One person knows they’re sabotaging. Same engine as Traitors, different costume.
The Circle — Nobody knows who anyone really is. Identity itself becomes the asymmetry.
Baking shows are not about baking. They’re about the gap between what skilled bakers know and what everyone else wishes they knew. The tent is a place where that gap is tested publicly, and failure makes it visible. That’s what creates tension, not the technical challenge itself.
The key insight: Information asymmetry isn’t a format trend. It’s a foundation block of storytelling. What The Traitors did was make the mechanism the explicit game rather than the structural backdrop. That’s the creative breakthrough, not the concept itself.
Why The Traitors landed when it did
The timing wasn’t random. During and after the pandemic, a generation of viewers spent serious time playing Among Us, Werewolf, and Mafia. These are pure information asymmetry games. A small group knows who they are. The majority doesn’t. The gameplay is entirely social deduction.
When The Traitors arrived on screen, it didn’t feel new to that audience. It felt like a language they already spoke. Television took a long time to catch up to where audiences had already been. The Traitors was proof that the catch-up had happened.
How developers actually find this
Most developers don’t start by identifying the structural mechanic. They start with a gut feeling, an image, a social dynamic, a game they played, a conversation that wouldn’t leave them alone. The analysis, if it happens at all, comes after.
That’s not a problem. Gut-driven development is often where the best formats come from.
But there’s a difference between a developer who works purely on instinct and one who can also name what they’re doing. When you can name the building blocks, you can use them more deliberately. You can stress-test an idea. You can explain to a commissioner not just what a format is but why it works.
The building blocks don’t always come with academic names. The ticking clock. Co-dependency. Sending to Coventry. Haves and have-nots. These are the structural tools developers reach for, often without labelling them. Information asymmetry is just another one of those tools, with a name borrowed from economics.
The development implication: Rigorous analysis of what’s working in successful formats isn’t the opposite of creative instinct. It’s what turns instinct into a repeatable process. The gut finds the idea. The analysis builds the system.
What this means for your next pitch
Proof by trend is one of the most powerful things you can carry into a commission meeting. It tells a broadcaster not just that your format is good but that the audience is already primed for the experience it delivers.
But proof by trend only works if you can explain the mechanism. Saying “it’s like The Traitors but different” isn’t proof. Understanding why The Traitors worked, and showing how your format uses the same structural engine in a new context, that’s the conversation that gets a commission moving.
Proof over pitch tells you what audiences are ready for. Understanding structural mechanics tells you why. Put those two things together and you have something more useful than a strong idea.
You have a process you can repeat.
Jonathan Glazier is a TV format creator, multi-camera director, and consultant based in Cambridge, UK. He writes about format development, the creator economy, and the structural forces shaping television.