The Chief Editor's column (1)

Take a look through the eyes of Sietse Bakker, Chief Editor of esctoday.com. On a weekly base he will discuss the latest Eurovision Song Contest news and background information with you!

This news appeared on esctoday.com this week: Svante Stockselius, supervisor of the Eurovision Song Contest at the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), has informed OGAE Norway that the EBU is considering a completely revamped voting system for the semifinal and final in Istanbul. The aim is to give all 36 active participants the chance to take part in the voting of both shows without overrunning the time limit for the show of 3 hours.According to the EBU's plan, a computer will add up the lower scores (1 to 7) from each country during the interval act. This will lead to a preliminary result which will be shown directly on the scoreboard. When each country is called in to vote, the spokesperson will announce only the three favourites, awarding them 8, 10 and 12 points respectively. In addition to save time, it is hoped that this new system will also add some excitement to the votingprocedure. The exact distribution of the lower scores will be made public after the show by the EBU.