Marlborough businessman Tony Smale is disappointed that Marlborough has been overlooked by Government and television broadcaster, with Marlburians facing the same or higher costs for Freeview than other parts of the country, for a lower quality service.

Marlborough residents will not have access to Freeview high definition television despite the cable supplying the service to Nelson running through Blenheim.

The broadcasting minister, Freeview and television broadcaster TVNZ said Marlborough was missing out because of a lack of funding.

Freeview is the digital replacement for analogue TV, which is being switched off in Marlborough on April 28.

While 86 per cent of the country have access to Freeview HD, Marlborough will not. They are also among the 600,000 people who will be able to access only 18 of the 28 channels on Freeview Satellite.

This is despite the Freeview feed for Nelson being delivered via fibre-optic cable from Christchurch and through Blenheim, before being bounced to the Nelson transmission site via microwave repeaters above Kaituna and Havelock.

Blenheim businessman Tony Smale, who recently went to upgrade his television, was surprised Marlborough residents would miss out on Freeview HD.

"This is symptomatic of the decision-making that goes on in Wellington," he said.

"How can it be a question of economics when Nelson's cable runs through Blenheim?"

Government and broadcasters appeared to have been misinformed when making their decision, he said, pointing out that Masterton, which had half the population of Marlborough, is getting Freeview HD.

After making some inquiries, he received a response from Broadcasting Minister Craig Foss, who said the aim was to get the widest population coverage with the available funding, and there were no plans to expand the network further.

Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment spokesman Ian Hutchings said the Kaituna repeater was capable of covering Blenheim if broadcasters decided to extend the service, but TVNZ transmission service manager Wayne Huggard said it would be a significant extra cost.

Freeview general manager Sam Irvine said the reception quality of Freeview satellite would still be a big improvement over analogue.

However, Noel Leeming Blenheim store manager Joe Smith said the Freeview satellite quality would be only 70 per cent as good as Freeview HD. The only way to get high definition television here would be by paying for SKY or Igloo services.