About us Mō mātou

The Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) is an independent Crown entity that oversees the broadcasting standards regime on behalf of New Zealanders. We determine complaints, oversee and develop broadcasting standards, and engage with broadcasters and the public to help people understand and apply the broadcasting standards system, our decisions and our research.

For more information see What we do.

You can complain about programmes on TV and radio, as well asopen_in_new certain online content. This covers:

• Free-to-air TV programmes
• Pay TV programmes
• Radio programmes
• Certain online contentopen_in_new including on-demand content that has previously been broadcast and you can point to that broadcast within the last 20 working days
• Election advertisements on TV or radio (during election periods)

If the programme you are complaining about was broadcast on or after 1 July 2022, you can complain to the BSA about the following issues under the new Broadcasting Standards Codebook: 

• offensive and disturbing content 
• children’s interests 
• promotion of illegal or antisocial behaviour 
• discrimination and denigration 
• balance 
• accuracy 
• privacy 
• fairness 

To help you decide which is most relevant to your concerns see our guide to choosing a standardopen_in_new. The standards are explained in more detail in the Broadcasting Standards Codebookopen_in_new.

You can also complain to us about election programmesopen_in_new, which come under a separate code.