To Channel 7,

I am one of many avid AFL supports who live in Sydney. I would like to put forward a couple of complaints about your coverage of the 2009 AFL finals.

Channel 7’s decision to show these Finals games with a 1 hour delay in Sydney.
The shocking camera work during the game.

Many of my Sydney friends and family follow non Sydney teams who have made it in to the finals this year - Crows, Collingwood, Brisbane etc. We are extremely disappointed that the games have been delayed an hour. Last week, the Crows played in a very close game with Collingwood and the fact that we are unable to watch it live ruined the game for these supporters. Because of the delayed the telecast, other networks were displaying the results on their news bulletins.

During the closeness of the game, my Mother switched it over for a split second and in that second that network had flashed the end score on the screen. People from interstate (who may I add were watching it LIVE) were texting results, people on facebook were posting messages – how are we in Sydney able to watch the game we love without it being ruined by the fact that the rest of Australia actually are able to watch it live!!!

You’d expect that if Channel 7 were the only network to cover the AFL finals, you would at least play it live... I believe Channel 10 in previous years played all finals LIVE! Even in Sydney!!

You would have a lot of angry viewers if you decided not to play the Grand Final live... These are important games, and most have been very very close. It would be nice to be able to watch them LIVE!!!

The second complaint is I think the Channel 7 camera men – or the producer or whoever is responsible for what the viewers see on the tv screen need to go to a course on camera work at the AFL. Too many close ups, half the time we couldn’t see where the ball was because they were still filming the last guy that had the football... It was all over the place and really annoying to see.

As you can see, my overall experience with watching the AFL finals on Channel 7 is not a good one. I hope that if you are continuing to be the only network to cover them in the future you would decide not to delay them, as there are many AFL fans in Sydney (Surprise surprise but not all Sydney siders are NRL fans...!!)

Regards,

Unhappy AFL fan.