Looks like in the oncoming elections Italians will have to do without the usual TV debate opposing two candidates, since there will be 8 of them. With a simple combinatorial calculation, that would require 28 face-to-face debates (AGI news and Repubblica say 56, but that’s wrong) and it’s deemed as not feasible.

I won’t miss it (I actually missed all the previous ones, not having a TV set), but public televison should look at this fact as an opportunity for innovation, not as a problem. Why not a reality show with the 8 candidates? There would not even be the need to set up an original and par condicio-compliant voting system to declare the winner.