Local ABC Disappears For Some Austar Viewers

It’s often tempting to assume Australia has five national networks, but we’re frequently reminded that regional viewers have a quite different experience to people in capital cities. In the latest incident, Austar viewers have lost access to their regional ABC stations.

TV Tonight reports that since Tuesday, users of Austar’s newer set-top boxes in Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania haven’t been able to access their local ABC stations, instead getting the standard NSW service. That might not sound like a big deal, but with regional radio increasingly bombarded with national content, local ABC is often is good as it gets. It’s doubly annoying when those customers are paying for the service, of course, though at least iView might provide some relief (assuming speeds are high enough).

Got your own gripe about pay TV channel allocations? Share it in the comments.

Austar turns off ABC local [TV Tonight]