ITV Studios set for €73m payout amid Spanish format dispute

Spanish broadcaster Mediaset has been ordered to pay ITV Studios more than €73m (£63m) in compensation for airing one of the country’s most popular shows without a licence.

The payout has been ordered by the Provincial Court of Madrid and comes after a lengthy legal battle that involves long-running hit Pasapalabra, a gameshow based on ITVS-owned format The Alphabet Game.

The show initially debuted in Spain in 2000 on Atresmedia’s Antena 3, before Mediaset’s Telecinco acquired rights to the format from ITVS in 2009.

Pasapalabra sees teams competing across four rounds of word and trivia games, with the aim being to build up as much time as possible to take into the fifth and final round, known as El Rosco.

El Rosco is a game requiring contestants to work their way through the alphabet, correctly guessing specific words for each letter from definitions given by the host. It is frequently the most popular segment on Spanish linear TV.

However, following Telecinco’s acquisition of the Pasapalabra format, a dispute broke out over ownership of the El Rosco element of the show.

The original Alphabet Game format did not include the El Rosco game, but an Italian version of the show - known as Passaparola - did. It had been included following a territory-specific deal with El Rosco’s creators, Reto Luigi Pianta and René Mauricio Loeb.

Pianta and Loeb subsequently sold the rights to El Rosco to Netherlands-based MC&F Broadcasting Production & Distribution. When Pasapalabra was launched in Spain, the El Rosco element was also included.

That prompted a legal battle from MC&F, with Mediaset subsequently deciding to break its agreement with ITVS. Instead, it credited MC&F with the Pasapalabra format, which it said was based on its show, 21 x 100.

ITVS started legal action against Mediaset in 2012, with Spain’s Supreme Court subsequently ruling in 2019 that the broadcaster must stop broadcasting Pasapalabra. It added that Mediaset would have to compensate ITVS for profits gained from its airing.

As a result, rival broadcaster Atresmedia picked up rights to the show for its Antena 3 channel, where it remains a ratings hit.

In the interim, the court battle between ITVS and Mediaset continued, with an initial ruling by a Madrid court last year setting the compensation level at €44.3m. However, the Provincial Court of Madrid’s final ruling, first revealed by Spanish outlet El Confidencial, has now set the total figure at €73.2m.

The increased amount is partly due to the “coat-tail effect” that the show had on driving audiences to shoulder programming and associated advertising revenues. It is understood the ruling cannot be appealed further.

El Rosco rights decision

While ITVS is set to receive a bumper payout over Pasapalabra, a separate legal case has also been settled over ownership of the El Rosco element of the gameshow.

MC&F had sued Atresmedia for infringing its rights for using El Rosco within Pasapalabra.

Spain’s Supreme Court has now confirmed that the El Rosco element is owned by Netherlands-based firm MC&F, meaning Atresmedia’s Antena 3 will no longer be able to air the show in its current form.

The court said it “recognises that El Rosco is a work protected by intellectual property, as it is a developed, structured, and sufficiently complex television format, not an initial or general idea”.

It has also emerged that Mediaset Spain chief exec, Alessandro Salem, struck a deal with MC&F last year to acquire rights to El Rosco, with ambitions to launch a standalone series based on the popular strand.

Pasapalabra was Spain’s most-watched game show in April in terms of average audience, with 1.6 million viewers. The quiz show is produced by ITV Studios Iberia.

Mediaset and Atresmedia have not yet commented on the ruling, while ITVS has declined to comment.