1998 Survey Results

Fellow footy fans,

Recently AFANA surveyed our mailing list about the new TV coverage this year. Here's a few of the things we heard from you the fan:

The survey was conducted in early to mid June and one fourth of those polled responded. This was not a scientific survey and the accuracy of the results cannot therefore be guaranteed.

Demographics

Our mailing list includes a high percentage of "veteran" fans. On average they have been fans for over 13 years with only 6% joining the ranks of the converted in the past two years. The fans consider themselves to be very to highly knowledgable about the sport. About two thirds of the fans are US natives and most of the rest are Australian ex-patriates.

Highlight shows

On average fans had watched over 5 of the 9 or 10 highlights shows aired up to that point in time. The shows reach 80 to 85% of the fans.

This year's host, Gerard Healy, was considered to be "OK" with opinions mostly average to good. When fans were asked to choose between Gerard Healy, Rex Hunt, and Stephen Quartermain, they picked Stephen Quartermain most often with Healy finishing second.

The match commentary this year by Tim Watson and Anthony Hudson was rated only average or OK with opinions very nearly divided down the middle.

When asked if they would prefer the current commentary or a return to edited Seven network commentary, more than half chose the old method. This is clearly in part due to the experience level of our survey - experienced fans don't need the explanations of the game provided by Watson and Hudson.

However when asked if this year's changes are helpful to new fans, the majority felt they were "helpful" to "very helpful".

The most popular features of the coverage (excluding the footy itself) are Top Ten highlights and Darren Bennett's special segments. The least popular item, by a wide margin is the new opening graphics and music.

Scheduling of the programs continues to be an issue with over 60% indicating the scheduled times were very inconvenient to just acceptable.

The match selection to date was considered by most to be good.

The common requests were for "more footy and less beginner info", "more match coverage and less talk and commercials", more variety in featured clubs, more variety in rules/ player profile segments and changes in the music and graphics.

Overall, the programs rated acceptable to good.

The survey confirmed AFANA's opinion that the novice and veteran audience bases are divergent in their needs. How to deal with that is the issue.

Match of the Week (2 hour programs)

At least 40% of the fans have seen at least one of the MOTW programs and on average have watched 2. Of those that have not seen the program about 90% don't receive the programs on their cable or satellite system. Of those that do, the most often watched channels were FOX Sports World, WPXN TV, and FOX Sports New England.

The most popular segments of the programs were the Rules segments and the least (again) were the music and graphics.

Fans did not seem to be bothered by the editing of the match to fit the 2 hour time slot with 75% indicating they didn't have a problem with it. Scheduling continues to be an issue with about half indicating the times were inconvenient.

The match selection was generally considering to be OK to good.

The most common suggestion was for more variety in the clubs featured in the MOTW.

Overall, the programs rated good to excellent and fans seem pleased.

Full match coverage (3 hour programs)

These are reaching just 10 to 20% of the potential audience so that the average number of shows seen is about one. About 90% of those who haven't seen the programs do not currently receive them. Fans are only seeing these programs on FOX Sports World.

Scheduling was not considered a problem by the small number of fans who have seen the full matches but match selection was rated OK to poor by just under half.

Overall the full matches were very highly rated by fans with two thirds considering the product to be good to excellent. The only suggestion was for live coverage.

FOX Affiliates

The fans are not uniformly distributed geographically with concentrations on both coasts. As the a result the most often watched FOX affiliates are: FOX Sports Southwest, FOX Sports Bay Area, FOX Sports West, FOX Sports New England, FOX Sports New York, and FOX Sports Northwest.

Web sites

AFL

The AFL web site has been visited by fans an average of 3 to 4 times this year and over three fourths have visited the site at least once.

The most popular features of the site were the match results (scores),the ladder, match summaries, RealAudio summaries, and news items.

The least popular items were the slow access times and the home page layout / color scheme.

The most requested features were more international information, and more on tactics, rules, and trends in the sport.

AFANA

The AFANA web site has been visited by fans an average of over three times this season and over two thirds have dropped by at least once.

The most popular features are the TV schedules, the links pages, AFL Club reports, and US footy news.

The most common complaints were not enough graphics, and the formatting of the pages being inconvenient for those with monitors below 800 x 600 resolution. This appears to affect less than 10% of the fans since the default resolution of Windows 95/98 and recent Macintosh models is 800 x 600 or higher.

The most requested features were RealAudio support and a full tipping contest for the '99 season. Most fans found the TV pages to be easy to use. Overall, fans rated the web site good to excellent.

AFANA thanks everyone who took the time to answer our survey. We will make good use of the results in our future efforts to improve TV coverage. We will be sharing these results with FOX and the AFL.

Regards,
Rob de Santos

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