Like a bottle full of water available during a desert crossing in broad daylight. This is the current value of “The Wheel of Fortune”, Mediaset’s true lifeline, from which Canale 5 draws daily.

Apart from the programs involving Maria De Filippi, Gerry Scotti’s game represents the only joy of the network, a sort of diamond to be displayed and boasted of.

The ratings are as high as they are impressive. In the access-prime time slot, “La Ruota” reached an average of 5 and a half million, i.e. three million more heads than those who tuned in to “Striscia la Notizia” just a year ago. A clear change of direction, a metamorphosis that amazed everyone, even the most optimistic. Because if a return to competitiveness could be imagined, such a leap forward was unthinkable.

We then go back upstream, to the metaphor of water in the desert. “La Ruota” is effectively quenching Canale 5’s thirst in a period of serious drought. The problem now lies in how the flagship will use that single bottle of water.

In some ways, we already have the answer, considering the space that the game has conquered in the entire schedule.

The numbers speak, they never lie and most of the time they help to clarify things. On Wednesday 19th November the episode of “La Ruota” lasted 67 minutes, the same on Tuesday 18th, while the evening before 68. Sunday 16th again 67 minutes and Friday 15th even 69. The figure, it must be said, refers to the official block and does not take into account the preview.

The curiosity lies in the comparison with the durations of the same program in the previous month. Here then we realize that on 17 and 16 October the stopwatch showed 64 minutes and on 15 October 62. Identical method and a new jump back a further thirty days to note how on 19 and 18 September the broadcast had sent the closing credits after 59 minutes and on 17 September after 58. Translated: in two months “La Ruota” was lengthened by ten minutes, even giving way to prime time at 22.

It is therefore clear that, faced with a weak and faded prime time, Mediaset is betting everything on its goose that lays the golden eggs, perhaps by moving the access deadline as far as possible.

Filippa Lagerback appears for 210 seconds per episode. Yet Samira Lui is making the news

The Wheel risks the saturation effect

“They inform me that we have time for an additional heat,” says Scotti more and more often. We have proof that this is not the case at all, since the time in question is taken away from others.

And on the subject of enlargement, the decision to launch the ‘Tournament of Champions’ is a perfect fit, with the prime time landing which this time will become official.

Squeezed far and wide, “La Ruota” however risks the saturation effect. Instead of keeping doses of bottled water, Canale 5 chose to drink everything immediately. There is no perspective, there is no vision, only the ‘here and now’ counts. Then tomorrow we’ll think about it again.

A strategy that can provide immediate results, certainly not in the long term. And in Cologno they know something about titles stripped and dried up, to the point of decreeing their ‘death’.