The start of the new television season aggravates the format struggle between the main private networks. If in July it was Mediaset that announced a lawsuit against Atresmedia for the broadcast of the test A to Z due to its similarities with The Rosconow it is Atresmedia that is considering suing Mediaset for the similarity of “Rueda la letra” with “Pasapalabra”.

The audiovisual group, together with ITV – which owns the rights to “The Alphabet Game”, the competition on which “Pasapalabra” is based – is considering filing a lawsuit against its rival because it considers that “Rueda la letra” is a plagiarism of one of its star programs, according to reports The Country.

The truth is that both programs have multiple elements in common. Both are based on the participation of two contestants, each accompanied by two celebrities who help them during a series of tests to accumulate time for the final test. These tests consist, in both cases, of lexical riddles, word games or musical competitions.
Beyond the dynamics, both “Rueda la letra” and “Pasapalabra” present a similar aesthetic and staging, with lighting effects, color palette, camera movements or similar visual resources.

The similarities even affect the content. As the audience has perceived, in the short tour of the new Telecinco space, it has already coincided with “Pasapalabra” in one of the questions asked to the contestants during their corresponding final tests. As a curiosity, the participants’ failure was also the same.

The similarities between formats have also influenced the participation of the contestants. “Rueda la letra” has begun its journey together with Lilit Manukyan and Fran González, both winners of previous editions of “Pasapalabra”; and they seem to still be accustomed to the expression popularized by the contest to pass the turn. What’s more, Telecinco chose to dub Manukyan when he used the term during the final test to replace a rugged “Pasapalabra” with “Paso.”

“Pasapalabra” with A to Z

The format and the final tests are protagonists in the legal duel between Atresmedia and Mediaset, which has become fierce in recent months. Last May the Supreme Court ruled that Antena 3 could not continue offering The Rosco of its “Pasapalabra” contest by confirming that the property rights of the final test of the program belong to the Dutch company MC&F.

The decision, however, did not imply that the network had to stop broadcasting “Pasapalabra,” which is based on an original British format called “The Alphabet Game.” Its broadcasts began in the mid-nineties and its international rights currently belong to the British network ITV, with Atresmedia being a franchisee.

As a result of the court’s decision, at the end of June “Pasapalabra” replaced The Rosco by A to Zbased on “DallAZetA”, a format broadcast between 2022 and 2024 on RSI, the public television of Italian Switzerland. The test has been adapted and incorporated into the rest of the dynamics that make up the popular contest hosted by Roberto Leal, and it premiered successfully on Friday, June 19, making “Pasapalabra” reach 1.6 million viewers on average and a 21.9% screen share, that is, its best result in the previous four months.

A to Z is similar in essence to The Rosco. It maintains the dynamic of responding to words to the definitions read by the presenter and that begin or include one of the letters of the alphabet. However, instead of the previous circle that gave its name to the challenge, the letters are now arranged in an orderly line at the bottom of the screen.

The contestant who has obtained the most points by completing the previous tests chooses whether he wants to complete the row from A to Z or from Z to A, leaving the other order to his opponent. But unlike The Roscowhich was approached blindly, now each definition includes lines that indicate the number of letters the word has, as well as a brief summary of the definition. Likewise, the clues that contestants can request and the time to play also varies.

Despite the changes introduced, viewers seem to continue opting for “Pasapalabra”, whose broadcast on September 7, in the 8:00 p.m. slot, registered 1,365,000 viewers on average and a 17.8% share. Very similar figures that were repeated the next day, when it obtained 1,364,000 viewers on average and a screen share of 16.1%.

“Roll the letter” with The Rosconow The Wheel

Immediately after learning of the Supreme Court’s decision, Mediaset announced that it had obtained the rights to The Roscothanks to an agreement with the Dutch production company MC&F. And in recent months he has worked, together with the production company Bulldog TV, on a contest focused on the test and which has resulted in “Roll the letter” and The Wheel as a final game. Telecinco cannot use the name of The Rosco in its new contest, because the brand belongs to ITV and the exploitation rights in Spain are currently in the hands of Antena 3, after Telecinco lost them in 2019.

In this sense, Atresmedia and Mediaset have carried out different processes. The first has maintained the structure of the program, but has changed its final test; while the second has created a whole new contest around the proof of the outcome. And this has also become one of the pillars of its promotion strategy for the new space, referring to it as “the original.”

“Roll the letter”, hosted by Carlos Sobera, also pits two contestants accompanied by celebrities against each other in various challenges to accumulate time for the final test. Start with I have saidin which you have to link famous personalities with historical phrases; continue with Singing I hopein which you have to guess songs; With two wordsin which you have to guess words described with two others; and Hidden Wordsin which you have to create words from syllables. All of this culminates in The Wheelwhich pits contestants against each other to find words corresponding to 25 letters of the alphabet.

However, having the original format of The Rosco It is not proving to be a sufficient reason to captivate the public, in whose consumption habits “Pasapalabra” has been consolidated over the years. “Rueda la letra” had an average audience of 624,000 viewers and a 9.1% share on the day of its premiere, last September 7 at 7:00 p.m. The figures did not improve the next day, when it registered 587,000 viewers on average and an 8% share.