Rosco Archives - usatoday24

Antena 3 does not have Pasapalabra’s El Rosco, but it continues to destroy its substitute. Telecinco wants to fix it in court

July 10, 2026 by usatoday24

Antena 3 has been leading the audience in Spain for five consecutive seasons, and a good part of that dominance was built letter by letter, in the Rosco of ‘Pasapalabra’. In May, a court took away the iconic final test of his Access talisman. And three weeks after the channel replaced it with a very similar test, Mediaset intends to demonstrate that the change is not legal either. That’s why, will sue Atresmedia by AlaZ, the new final test of ‘Pasapalabra’. The judicial decision. Last May 21the Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court confirmed that the Rosco format belongs to MC&F Broadcasting Production and Distribution, and not to ITV Studios or Atresmedia. The ruling ratified a previous ruling from the Provincial Court of Barcelona in 2022 and forced Antena 3 to stop broadcasting that specific test, although the rest of ‘Pasapalabra’ could continue on the air. It is a legal dispute that comes from afar. ‘Pasapalabra’ was born in 1996 as an adaptation of the British format ‘The Alphabet Game’, from ITV, although the final test grew on its own until it became an element with its own identity. In 2019, Telecinco already lost a similar legal battle against ITV for the global rights to the program and had to withdraw it from its schedule: ITV and MC&F have licensed it separately, and that has generated problems. Atresmedia recovered the competition in May 2020, but the judicial shadow over Rosco was never completely cleared, until this year’s ruling. The substitution. On June 19, Antena 3 replaced El Rosco with AlaZ, an adaptation of the Swiss contest ‘DallAZetA’. Mediaset, meanwhile, with the exploitation rights of Rosco finally under its belt, has begun to prepare its own contest built on that test, predictably for Telecinco. Its own ‘Pasapalabra’… which cannot be called ‘Pasapalabra’ or imitate the rest of the tests. The problem is that in Mediaset’s opinion, Antena 3 continues to culminate ‘Pasapalabra’ with a Rosco that cannot be Rosco. The resemblance. The company supports its claim on the Supreme’s own definition of Rosco: two or more contestants compete against the clock answering questions whose answers follow alphabetical order. Under this criterion, Mediaset maintains that AlaZ retains almost all the essential elements of the Rosco: two contestants, a tour of the 25 letters of the alphabet, accumulated time from previous tests during the program, a cumulative jackpot and visual signaling of successes, errors and pending questions almost identical to that of the Rosco, only in a line instead of a circle. The differences. However, there are also details that distinguish both tests: The AlaZ system is more closed and strategic and the contestant can no longer give probable answers, but must guess an exact word whose length is revealed by dashes, in the style of ‘The Hanged Man’. The stopwatch also changes, from the usual 85 seconds in the Rosco to 110, and a penalty is introduced for receiving clues that does not exist in the Rosco. Of course, for Mediaset none of these adjustments alter the essentials of the game. The company states that “only minor differences have been introduced to make something substantially the same.” The comparison it offers contrasts these changes with the real differences of the original Swiss format, where a single contestant competes, there is no accumulated jackpot and each program is independent of the previous one. For MC&F and Mediaset, AlaZ is more similar to Rosco than the Swiss contest from which Atresmedia bought the license. The hearings. Since Atresmedia recovered ‘Pasapalabra’ in May 2020, the chain went from an average share of 11.7% in 2019 to around 13.9% in the following years, consolidating a leadership which has been maintained for five consecutive seasons. The most important thing is the drag effect that ‘Pasapalabra’ generates on the network’s news programs and ‘El Hormiguero’. And things have not changed with the loss of Rosco. The premiere of AlaZ, on June 19, was already a hit: the program signed 21.9% of share and 1.6 million viewers on average, with the final test shooting up to a 28.3% share in its closing minute. The new mechanics improved the average that Rosco had been recording that same season by three points. The first full week confirmed the trend, averaging 17.1% share. And that sometimes competes with the World Cup, a sporting event that has devoured the Telecinco audiences (although in July, the only weak days for Antena 3 have coincided with free-to-air World Cup matches). Without that competition, the program continues to exceed the 18% quota, a level similar to what it already had. Antena 3 has no one to complain, with or without Rosco. In Xataka | Telecinco has ‘El Rosco’ but does not have ‘Pasapalabra’. Antena 3 has ‘Pasapalabra’ but does not have ‘El Rosco’

Telecinco has just bought the rights to ‘El Rosco’ from ‘Pasapalabra’. The only problem is that ‘Pasapalabra’ is from Antena 3

May 28, 2026 by usatoday24

Among many other things that have happened in recent years with ‘Pasapalabra’, Mediaset paid a fine of 73 million euros for broadcasting the program without having the rights, lost the program in 2019 and has been watching for six agonizing years how Antena 3 turned it into the most watched contest in Spain. Now, Telecinco announces that it has El Rosco back. The only thing missing is everything else. Back to Mediaset. This Wednesday, Mediaset España confirmed in a very brief press release (consisting, in fact, of a single sentence, which could be interpreted as that Telecinco is not yet completely clear about its plans), that it is preparing “a new program that will include El Rosco as the final and main element.” we already knew that the Supreme Court had forced Antena 3 to withdraw that test from ‘Pasapalabra’, and abundant rumors were already circulating that approximately a year and a half ago Telecinco had closed the agreement to recover the test, conditional on the courts ruling in favor of the Dutch company MC&F, owner of the rights. High hierarchies. To get an idea of how coveted the Rosco is, you only have to keep one thing in mind: the new agreement between Mediaset and MC&F was negotiated directly by Alessandro SalemCEO of the audiovisual group. What Mediaset has acquired is the license to use El Rosco: the circle of letters, the dynamic of “passing the word”, the repetition of unanswered questions and the final stopwatch. What it has not acquired is ‘Pasapalabra’ in its entirety: the full format of the contest belongs to ITV, which maintains its current contract with Antena 3. That is, the new Telecinco program cannot be called ‘Pasapalabra’ nor replicate the tests prior to Rosco. The importance of Rosco. All these shenanigans to acquire a test and not a program, without a doubt, put a question on the table: what is the true drawing power of Rosco alone if it does not have the previous forty minutes that generate tension and familiarize us with the contestants. That is the task that Mediaset now has before it: to build a program of prior tests that firmly support the star challenge. The fine. Telecinco does not come to this acquisition of Rosco with the joy of teenage boyfriends. The Provincial Court of Madrid sentenced Mediaset to pay 73.2 million euros to ITV for broadcasting ‘Pasapalabra’ without authorization between 2012 and 2019. The figure was increased considerably over the initial calculation of 44.3 million because the court estimated that the advertising revenue generated had been higher than those calculated in the first instance. Furthermore, the resolution recognized the “carryover effect”: the indirect benefit that the contest brought to the news and to the prime time later, which increased the main compensation by another 233,134 euros for that specific concept. Delicate moment. The Rosco announcement comes at the worst time in Telecinco’s recent history. The channel closed 2025 with a 9.5% annual quotathe worst record in its history for the fourth consecutive year. December 2025 marked an 8.4% share, the worst month in the regular season of his entire career. January 2026 was even more brutal: 8.5% and its worst start to the yearbelow the aggregate of the autonomous chains. The chain has been chaining minimums since July 2025, and they have taken brutal cost cutting measures such as merge the set of Informativos Telecinco and Noticias Cuatro. How Rosco affects audiences. ‘Pasapalabra’ is the most watched daily program on Spanish television for the sixth consecutive year, with an average share of 18.3% in the 2024/2025 season and a maximum of 21.1% in June 2025. But above all, El Rosco is the mechanism that keeps the viewer glued to Antena 3 until the nightly news. And whoever reaches the news program goes to ‘El Hormiguero’. Telecinco does not have anything comparable in that segment, but El Rosco as the driving force of a new contest would be a good way to fight Antena 3 at the time of day when the largest audience drags towards the final stretch of the day. Meanwhile, Antena 3 can continue broadcasting the already recorded episodes of ‘Pasapalabra’ that include El Rosco, until they receive official notification. Hectic times are coming in the afternoons of traditional television. In Xataka | Four years of historic audience lows: Telecinco is looking for oxygen this summer and its idea is to recycle presenters and formats

Antena 3 has been broadcasting the Rosco from ‘Pasapalabra’ for 26 years as if it were theirs. And justice has just put an end to it

May 22, 2026 by usatoday24

Is the most watched program on Spanish television. And he faces a considerable problem. It is a topic that affects not its mechanics, but its most iconic and recognizable moment: those final minutes in which two contestants review the alphabet against the clock. The Supreme Court has ratified that this circle of letters was never owned by Antena 3, and in fact, its true owners have been waiting for decades for the courts to agree with them. The time has come. The sentence. The Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court issued its resolution on April 30 and made it public on May 21, 2026. The ruling confirms the ruling of the Provincial Court of Barcelona and dismisses the appeals of Atresmedia and ITV Studios, producer of the program, concluding that El Rosco is a work protected by intellectual property whose ownership corresponds to the Dutch company MC&F Broadcasting Production and Distribution CV The sentence requires the cessation of broadcast of Rosco and a compensation of 50,000 euros for moral damages. Delete ‘Pasapalabra’. In fact, there are a detail in the sentence which is more impressive on practical levels for the average viewer than the fine itself: the sentence imposes the destruction of all recordings of programs that include El Rosco. Although this “destruction” comes from article 139 of the Spanish Intellectual Property Law, whose purpose is to remove copies from commercial exploitation (DVDs, platform licenses, sales to third parties), it does not necessarily refer to the chain’s internal archive, that is, ‘Pasapalabra’ is not going to become lost media. In practice, however, you cannot license, sell or distribute the program in streaming. If Antena 3 had, for example, episodes available on Atresplayer, they would have to be removed. The defense of Atresmedia. According to Atresmedia, El Rosco was a generic idea (questions ordered by the letters of the alphabet), and the ideas are not protectable by law. However, the Supreme Court, in reaching its decision, emphasizes that the test enjoys “sufficient originality” because it reflects free creative decisions of its authors, a “own uniqueness” that distinguishes it from other games based on the alphabet, and above all, it alludes to its visual configuration: the circular donut, the dynamic of passing and returning to unanswered questions and the final stopwatch. This idea was born in the Italian version of ‘Pasapalabra’, in 1999. As arrive El Rosco to Spain without rights. It is to that point in history that we must go back to understand the dispute. The game was created by two Italians, Reto Luigi Pianta and René Mauricio Loeb, as part of a program called ‘End Game 21×100’, which was later merged with the Italian version of ‘The Alphabet Game’, called ‘Passaparola’, at the end of that decade. The creators assigned their rights to the Dutch production company MC&F. Until then, no conflict. The problem came when ITV began licensing Pasapalabra to other European networks, including El Rosco in the package, as if it were part of the original format, something that MC&F has been calling illegal for decades. That is to say, Antena 3 has broadcast for 26 years a format that included a piece that was not its own, nor the person who sold it to it. When Telecinco also lost ‘Pasapalabra’. It is not the first time that the Supreme Court has reorganized the Spanish television map on account of this program. In 2019, the Supreme Court forced Telecinco to stop broadcasting ‘Pasapalabra’ following the lawsuit brought by ITV in 2010 over the rights to the full format. Following its victory in court, ITV assigned the rights to Atresmedia, and Antena 3 resumed broadcasting on May 13, 2020. Since then the program has not stopped growing. The importance of ‘Pasapalabra’. The contest is the cornerstone on which all of Antena 3’s late-night programming is based, currently the most viewed chain of Spanish television. In the 2024/2025 season, ‘Pasapalabra’ reached an average share of 18.3% of sharewith a maximum of 21.1% in June 2025, consolidating itself for the sixth consecutive year as the most watched daily program on Spanish television. And from there people do not turn away from television: El Rosco is the anchor that drags viewers towards the nightly news and towards the prime time of ‘The Anthill‘. What is the future of ‘Pasapalabra’. The ruling does not eliminate ‘Pasapalabra’ from Antena 3. ITV’s contract with Atresmedia remains in force and the program can continue on the air. What it cannot do is include El Rosco. Program sources have confirmed that Atresmedia will maintain the broadcast “normally” until receiving official notification of the ruling and knowing the deadlines for the process. From there, the possible paths are to negotiate directly with MC&F to obtain a use license, design a new final test to replace the Rosco or wait for ITV to reach an agreement with MC&F. Problem: None of the three options are quick and all involve altering a program that, as it stands right now, is working like a charm. Mediaset’s trick. And here comes the twist: apparently Approximately a year ago, Mediaset closed an agreement with MC&F to acquire the rights to Rosco, conditional on the Supreme Court resolving the dispute in the terms that have finally become known. With the sentence now final, Mediaset can create a program around Rosco. But that program cannot be called ‘Pasapalabra’ nor have the mechanics of the Antena 3 program. In other words, if it is confirmed that Mediaset can use Rosco, the most famous program on television is now divided: its name and structure is from one network, its best-known test from another. In any case, we are going to see changes in the future, predictably in Access that Antena 3 now dominates. And whoever controls Access… controls the audiences. In Xataka | Four years of historic audience lows: Telecinco is looking for oxygen this summer and its idea is to recycle presenters and formats

with his latest Rosco, he has achieved audiences typical of the last century

February 6, 2026 by usatoday24

Rosa Rodríguez has entered the history of Spanish television, thanks to the 2,716 million euros she won in the legendary final rosco of ‘Pasapalabra’. The nightly special gathered 4.1 million viewers at its peak (a 45.3% share), figures that seem taken from another decade. But what is notable is not the prize or the specific audience, but rather that this contest, broadcast outside the prime timehas maintained for 25 years a capacity for convening that defies all logic. The fragmentation of audiences pulverizes formats each season, but ‘Pasapalabra’ grows. What happened. After 307 duel programs with Manu Pascual, Rodríguez, an Argentine teacher living in Galicia, completed the Rosco that gave her access to the largest jackpot ever awarded by ‘Pasapalabra’. Rodríguez and Pascual starred in the longest duel in the history of the program, 307 broadcasts faced in the final Rosco, a mark that far exceeds any other confrontation in the format. Pascual accumulated the absolute record for individual participations with 437 programs, and on six occasions he was one letter away from completing the rosco. On Thursday night, Rosa correctly resolved the 25 definitions (from “cruiser” to “Earl Morrall”, the American football player who closed her victory – not without controversy, since her pronunciation was not entirely correct, which triggered the inevitable on social networks. tongo accusations-) and dethroned Rafa Castañountil then holder of the largest jackpot with 2,272 million euros obtained in March 2023. Pascual left the contest with 270,600 euros accumulated, a considerable figure that does not mitigate the frustration of having touched the jackpot on half a dozen occasions. The audience. The data turns Pasapalabra into a statistical anomaly. This season, the contest registers a daily average of 1,928 million viewers with a 20.3% screen share. These figures correspond to its usual evening broadcast, in a time slot, eight in the afternoon, which the industry does not consider prime time and which competes with the end of work days, commuting and family routines. The tentacles of Pasapalabra. The impact of the program transcends its own broadcast. On Thursday Antena 3 reached 18.9% daily averagedouble its usual performance. ‘The Anthill’with Rosa and Manu before Rosco, scored a spectacular 23.5% of shareits best figure since March 2023. Vicente Vallés’ nightly news program reached close to 3.1 million viewers, its highest in three years thanks to the audience awaiting the outcome. The evening magazine ‘Y Ahora Sonsoles’ and the daily series ‘Sueños de Libertad’ also recorded season highs dragged by the ‘Pasapalabra’ effect. It was the day with highest television consumption of the entire seasonwith 10 million Spaniards in front of the television after 11:00 p.m., 20% more than the previous week. A revealing fact: the final Rosco segment alone reaches a 25% screen share and 2.6 million viewers on average, surpassing the global audience of the entire program. It is the moment of maximum tension, when the secondary screens turn off. 25 years. The permanence of ‘Pasapalabra’ in the Spanish television ecosystem for a quarter of a century is complex to explain. Since its debut on Antena 3 in July 2000, the contest has aired on three different networks, several judicial stoppages and presenter changes. It has not lost cultural relevance. Its format maintains a deliberately simple structure: two contestants accumulate seconds in verbal agility tests that they then invest in the final Rosco, 25 definitions whose answers correspond to the alphabet. That invariability is, paradoxically, one of its greatest attractions. An anomaly. The context in which Pasapalabra thrives makes its success even more surprising. At the end of 2024 63.3% of Spanish households with Internet access used at least one paid audiovisual platform. Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ and the rest of the on-demand services have radically reconfigured consumption patterns: viewers decide what to watch, when to watch it and on what device to play it. The rigidity of the traditional television schedule should be an obstacle, but it is not However, the numbers refute the supposed obsolescence of linear television. Digital platforms accumulate 16.7% of total audiovisual consumption in Spain, and traditional television maintains 83.3% according to a Kantar analysis from July 2024. Among those over 50, free-to-air television continues to be the dominant medium, with consumption exceeding three hours a day on weekends. ‘Pasapalabra’ capitalizes on that type of audience. The unique touch. What distinguishes ‘Pasapalabra’ from extinct formats like ‘Who wants to be a millionaire?’? Its ability to generate events within the routine. Each Rosco is not just another episode: it is a potentially historic event, a unique opportunity to witness a record. The architecture of the growing jackpot transforms the daily broadcast into a series with no pre-established end. The suspense builds up for months until it explodes on nights like this Thursday. At prime time. Atresmedia’s decision to move the delivery of the boat to prime time generates a recurring debate among Pasapalabra’s loyal audience. Miguel Aparicio, director of the program, recognized that initially the team resisted this strategy: they preferred to “reward that follower who pays attention day after day” while maintaining the surprise factor. When Rosa completed the Rosco, Antena 3 built an entire programming architecture around the event, with a special prior to 8:00 p.m. in the program’s usual time slot, the appearance of the contestants on ‘El Hormiguero’ and finally the broadcast of the decisive Rosco after 11:00 p.m. This tactic has been repeated with the last big jackpots: Pablo Díaz in July 2021 (30.8% and 4.3 million), Rafa Castaño in March 2023 (37.4% and 4.5 million) and Óscar Díaz in May 2024 (30.1% and 3.2 million). They were all moved to nighttime hours after weeks of building expectations. The strategy works. Not only for the contest, which multiplies its usual audience, but for the entire grid. In Xataka | Telecinco’s crisis is so great that it is leading it to extreme measures: merging sets to save costs

Log In

Sign In

Forgot password?

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Add to Collection

No Collections