Rob Astbury (1948 – 9 November 2017)[1] was an Australian radio and television sports journalist and real estate agent.
Astbury was born in Avoca, Victoria. During a media career spanning 21 years, he won ten VFL/AFL awards, two national Penguin Awards and was twice nominated for the Logie Awards for the Best News Story of the year.[2] [3] After an early career in Melbourne radio, Astbury made a successful jump to television—firstly for the Channel 0/10 network, then for the Nine Network, after accepting a personal job offer from owner Kerry Packer. During his television career, Astbury was Australia's highest-paid sports correspondent.
In 2005, Astbury revealed he was HIV positive,[4] although medical tests showed he was a rare long-term nonprogressor (or "elite controller"), whose body can suppress the virus for a long period without antiretroviral drugs.[5] In 2006, celebrity agent Anthony Zammit published King and I: My Life With Graham Kennedy, a biography that detailed Astbury's relationship with entertainer Graham Kennedy.[6] After retiring from television, Astbury worked as a real estate agent at Broadbeach on the Gold Coast, Queensland, between 1995 and 2000. For the next decade, he ran a property development company in Thailand. During the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami while Astbury was holidaying in Phuket, he reported on the devastation for the political website Crikey.[7] Returning to the Gold Coast in 2010, Astbury worked with the Ray White Real Estate agency in Broadbeach. On 9 November 2017, a colleague found him dead in his home after he did not turn up to work and could not be contacted.
Astbury left a second biography unpublished.[8]