The new set of Figures and Letters is filled with electronic tablets. On his desk is no longer the gigantic tome of the dictionary of the RAE. In the 28 years that have passed since the game show was last broadcast on La 2, pen and paper have been practically abandoned. The show returns to TVE this Monday night. It's not that analog tools are forbidden in this vocabulary and mental arithmetic game, but new technologies help make the program more interactive.
Aitor Albizua replaces Elisenda Roca, the remembered presenter of the programme during the nineties, before the contest lived a second life in the regional channels. The Basque is already an expert in this genre. He was in charge of another mythical game show, Lingo, at ETB, and then made the leap to the afternoons of La 1 with another format of questions and answers, El comodín. When the journalist was born in Arrigorriaga (Bizkaia) 32 years ago, Cifras y letras was already on the air in Spain. He has been aware of the importance of "its nostalgic component, of how rooted it was in people's memory", seeing how viewers have reacted on social networks when his return was announced, he explained this Friday on the set of the program.
Aitor Albizua continues Elisenda Roca's legacy as presenter of 'Cifras y letras' on La 2.RTVE
"I assume that there will be comparisons with the previous version, but we are going to take advantage of the positives, the good reviews that the format has, to give it a boost and adapt it to 2024. We can't forget that neither the society of the nineties nor the television of that time are like those of today," defends the presenter.
The new Cifras y letras, produced by RTVE in collaboration with Atomis Media-Prime Time Media, has a duration of 30 minutes (from 21.30 to 22.00). Look for a livelier rhythm than the rest of the daily contests. And to create a habit in the viewer, so that they go on La 2 every night, as the miraculous Saber y ganardoes in the afternoons of the channel, obtaining in that slot more than double the share of the screen than its daily average. To keep the audience coming back every night, this time the contest will have a final quiz — 12 words on the same topic — and a jackpot rollover. And there will be no limit to the permanence of participants. The winner of the night will remain in the competition until eliminated. At the moment, the production company has signed for 60 broadcasts, which is equivalent to 15 weeks with broadcasts from Monday to Thursday on La 2.
In classical mechanics there were only two simple tests: to achieve a natural integer (from 101 to 999) in a given time, or to get as close as possible with six numbers and elementary arithmetic operations. In the language part, the contestants took turns asking for a vowel or consonant, up to a total of nine letters. With them they had to form, again in a few seconds, the longest word possible without using any letter more than once. In the event of an error on the part of the contestant, the points he would have obtained were awarded directly to his opponent.
In this new version, these two challenges will be combined with new games, related to general knowledge or the resolution of complex mathematical operations. These are tests that have already been tested. Despite its long absence from the public broadcaster, its makers refer to the French original, Des chiffres et des Lettres.
The show created by screenwriter and producer Armand Jammot has been broadcast uninterruptedly since 1965 on the public channel France Télévisions and has been gradually adapted to the new times, explains Isabel Raventós, executive producer of Atomis Media. "Our idea is to incorporate new technology and even artificial intelligence when we can," he says. His intention is to create a mobile application, perhaps in the style of the famous Wordle, so that the public can search for the longest possible word with the available letters. But without forgetting the original essence of the format that Jammot summed up in three concepts: "entertain, participate and learn", recalls the producer.
Elena Herraiz and David Calle, the experts of the new 'Cifras y letras' of La 2.RTVE
Experts and youtubers
With his sights set on two generations, Albizua is accompanied by two experts, just as Roca was in his day. But this time they are two YouTube stars with solid academic training: the language communicator Elena Herraiz (Linguriosa) —who will consult doubts through the RAE's online dictionary— and David Calle (Unicoos), a communications engineer who has been using the Internet as a pedagogical tool for years. Both achieve millions of views explaining the use of vos in Latin America or how an inverse matrix is made.
The two experts point out that both the linguistic and mathematical challenges faced by this new generation of contestants are twofold, since mobile phones, which have calculators and search engines, have made us lose mental agility in these two areas.
"But, on the other hand, thanks to technology, now we will always know what the longest possible word is," says Herraiz, "and that time gained is used to look for more information about the word, to give the public added value," adds Calle. "In spite of everything, there are still contestants who are very fast in mental arithmetic and who arrive very prepared. They are capable of completing very complex mathematical operations in a matter of seconds. They're going to leave the viewer open-mouthed," says the numbers expert of the new Figures and Letters.
The contest is proposed as an alternative in television programming in a time slot that has gained special relevance for channels in recent years. In its schedule, Cifras y letras will coincide with the last part of La 2's Telediario 2, the end of Antena 3 Noticias and the beginning of El hormiguero, a part of First Dates on Cuatro, the end of Informativos Telecinco and the start of ¡Allá tú! on Telecinco and part of El intermedio on La Sexta. It is a time slot in which the fight for the audience is arduous on other channels and in which La 2, with its alternative approach and outside the fierce fight for the audience of the commercial channels, now offers an option that combines culture and entertainment.
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