SydneyMorningHerald.com wrote:A dark day for Aussie expats in Asia as ABC names cut-off date for Australia Network
Date September 8, 2014 - 4:12PM

Bangkok: It's official. The lives of tens of thousands of Australian expatriates in Asia will change forever at midnight on September 28, hours after the AFL grand final.

A stake will be driven through our souls. For months we have been in denial: how could it be true that our government could close the ABC-managed Australia Network service?

No more footy.

No more Virginia Trioli's face smiling behind her dark glasses early on ABC News Mornings, bringing us up to date with the latest from home and abroad.

No more Tony Jones and Q&A.

No more Zoe Daniel and Jim Middleton fronting their program The World, a showcase news program in Asia (Middleton, a fine journalist, has taken a package and left the ABC after 44 years).

We won't of course miss some of the programming, like Channel Nine's The Block. But those of us who have been in Asia a while remember the sheepdog trials that were shown in the early days. Actually, I liked watching the sheepdog trials.

OK, I acknowledge I am writing this from the perspective of a passionate Collingwood supporter. I can't imagine what it will be like next season. I wake up in the night in a cold sweat thinking about the difficulties of trying to live-stream games on my dodgy internet.

But this is more than an atrocity inflicted on those of us out here deprived of Four'N Twenty meat pies.

For my children there will be no more Bananas in Pyjamas or Giggle and Hoot. How do you feel about that, Tony Abbott and Julie Bishop?

About 80 jobs have gone as a result of the axing of the network which has operated since 1993, then known as ATVI.

Lynley Marshall, the CEO of ABC International, announced the date of the closure in an email to staff and partners. "We will be terminating the Australia Network service at midnight Australian Eastern Standard time on Sunday the 28th of September. We apologise for any inconvenience," she wrote.

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