Dear Channel 9,

I am a Queenslander living in Melbourne. I have embraced AFL and watched many games, and have attended several live matches as well. But like I said, I’m a Queenslander, so I’m a Rugby League supporter at heart. I was so excited when Victoria embraced Rugby League and was positively elated when they had one of the State of Origin matches at Etihad last year, which I eagerly attended.

I think you know where this is going.

I watched the first State of Origin match of the 2010 series from the comfort of my home, and I’m sure you can imagine how pleased I was with the result. I unfortunately missed the second match due to a Melbourne University function (only Victoria would book an event on State of Origin night), so for the last 3 weeks, I have been so looking forward to watching game 3. I know it was a “dead rubber” but when you love a sport, these things don’t matter. Plus, both teams still had a lot to play for – Queensland were looking for their first clean sweep since the 1995 and New South Wales were looking to regain some pride.

So, perhaps you can imagine my utter dismay when I turned the TV on at 8pm only to find Daryl Somers staring back at me. “It must be a mistake”, I thought. So I turned over to Foxtel to see if they were showing it live. And then I noticed the delayed telecast to start at 9:30pm.

Are you for real? You want Victoria to embrace Rugby League, so you delay the telecast of one of the biggest matches of the year? This makes no sense to me. Especially considering that there are a few Melbourne Storm players in the competition. I just can not fathom it.

Can you please tell me why you chose to do this? I noticed in today’s paper that you have axed Hey Hey because of poor ratings, which is even more frustrating, since I’m sure you would have had a number of Victorians wanting to watch the State of Origin over Hey Hey. I hope I don’t have to write another letter like this, this time next year.

Regards,
Wifey

NOTE: FYI I stayed up for the delayed coverage and watched Queensland win 23-18 in an absolute CRACKER of a match, and I’ll be posting this letter to Channel 9 today.