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Austar increases subscribers

Austar has reached 762,000 subscriber but CEO John Porter says Pay TV is in ''a bit of a sh*t-fight'' with Free to Air TV.

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Austar has reached 762,000 subscribers in regional Australia.

Austar United Communications announced a 2 per cent increase in subscribers in the three months to September 30. Subscriber numbers rose by 14,771 to 761,919 in the third quarter.

The company posted a 21 per cent rise in third-quarter net profit of $22.8 million for the three months to September 30, up from $18.8m in the previous corresponding period.

But Austar’s net profit for the nine months to September was $43.5m, down 20 per cent from $54.3m in the same period last year. It also reported a small drop in the number of customers who cancelled their service each month.

While viewers are being tempted by new Freeview channels, CEO John Porter admitted that Pay Television is in ”a bit of a sh*t-fight” with free-to-air television.

Porter is one of Australia’s wealthiest media executives, paid $5.2 million last year.

Source: smh.com.au, The Australian

12 Responses

  1. Our Mystar box stopped responding properly on Wednesday morning after I reckon Austar did one of their midnight fixes. We got black channels for our Austar channels and only free to air. We rang up and were told it was a Darwin wide outtage. 12 hours later it still wasn’t fixed. Had to ring again, then was told to do a master reset which not only made things worse by making our free to air channels disappear but still no joy with getting our Austar channels back we have 1 TV1. We now have to wait a week to get a new box which I think it is pretty unacceptable as they should have a place where you can get one that day or if not have installers standing by with boxes at the ready. I think it is disgusting that a capital city cannot get Foxtel to which it seems people get much better service and more variety of channels and options.

  2. @ craig…..foxtel was not a “city ” only deal – Wollongong the 3rd largest city in NSW does not receive foxtel but is covered by Austar – foxtel was initially only available where Telstra and Optus had rolled out there respective cable services many years ago before they got stopped.

  3. One of the reasons Austar has increased in subscriber numbers is that they actually took over all the customers who were on Select Pay TV. Select TV have stopped showing shows in English, so were taken over by Austar. Plus Austar are giving me the same deal, pricewise, that I had signed on for with Select. So I guess the real reason for the increase was taking over for another Pay Provider.

  4. @Son – Austar is the regional equivalent of Foxtel. I don’t know the exact details but when the pay TV system was set up Foxtel took the cities and Austar had the rest.

    I’m on Austar but always wished I had a choice which didn’t rely on where I lived.

    FYI Austar does have HD channels, not sure if it’s a many as Foxtel though.

    Oh and I’m still using the same digital decoder that I have had for about 10 years and not the MyStar as, a) I think it’s a rip off and 2) from many accounts they don’t work very good and c) you get a very limited storage which I’d use in about a week and there is no way to burn off movies and such to watch on another TV or later.

  7. They wouldn’t have that many subscribers if regional viewers were allowed a choice as they’d have a huge amount switch to Foxtel so they could all the HD channels!

    Do something about it ACCC!

  11. Austar is in a sh** fight of their own making, Austar customers watch as our city neighbours get more and more channels and benefits from Foxtel and Austar doesnt get them and then they wonder why people question the value of subscribing to a second rate service.

  12. Sh*t fight eh?

    Then why doesn’t Porter do the most sensible thing and keep adding new HD channels alongside of Foxtel to fight the free-to-airs?

    Thought it would be simple and make sense.

    Oh wait, it’s Austar we’re talking about… that’s right. Silly me.

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