More of a black hole than a window

I for one - and I don't seem to be the only one - hope that the EBU reconsider their decision to extend the televoting window at the next Eurovision Song Contest from the current ten or fifteen minutes to...well, the full two hours the songs are being performed. Perhaps it's true that there is evidence from the trial run of the new system in Junior Eurovision that songs performed late in the running-order will not be unfairly disadvantaged (however counter-intuitive it seems), but even if that is the case, there remains the question of perception and credibility. It hardly helps to counter the popular notion that people are voting mainly for countries rather than songs if, for instance, it's perfectly possible for them to cast a vote for a song that hasn't been performed yet.

My guess is that this has far more to do with maximising revenues than it has with the stated reason of preventing the telephone lines from becoming overloaded. You normally don't have to look much further than the revenues whenever the issue of telephone voting on TV shows comes up. (Although of course Ant and Dec knew nothing about any of that.)