Val Sanders, managing director of Queensland-based Conference Online, said digital content companies outside Sydney and Melbourne will be hardest hit by this decision.

"You can't cut the funding and resources in half, close the office that services the other states, and expect that the whole country is going to continue to get the same opportunities and help from the program. It's just not realistic," Sanders said.

Franco Smargarsi from Compass EduMedia in Western Australia said cutting the digital content TradeStart program would directly reduce the number of Australian companies that could access the export assistance the program provides.

"Getting into international markets is hard enough at the best of times. Given that the world is going digital you'd think they'd be increasing the resources for helping Aussie content companies sell overseas, not cutting them," he said.