The Annual Report 2026 outlines the Authority's key achievements over the past year and details progress against long-term outcomes and objectives. It includes performance information such as complaint determinations and the Authority's financial statements.
A copy of the full report is available for download for the year ended 30 June 2026.
BSA Annual Report 2025-26 (4 MB, Pdf)
Chair’s report
Te pūrongo o te tiamana
This year’s annual report may be the last of its kind, or near to it, as the Media and Communications Minister Paul Goldsmith announced in May 2026 that the Government will disestablish the BSA and shift towards an industry self-regulatory model.
The Minister stated that the 1989-established model was built for a disappearing traditional broadcasting era and is not suitable for modern digital platform services, on-demand services and podcasts. The Government has indicated voluntary industry bodies, like the New Zealand Media Council, may expand their remit to include broadcast journalism. Other non-news content may no longer be regulated unless it is illegal – for example, objectionable material under the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993.
At the time of writing this report, legislation to disestablish the Authority is being drafted, with an intention to introduce it to Parliament before the General Election in November. While we wait for the implementation of the Government’s decision, we continue to carry out our statutory functions. In the context of uncertain timeframes for our disestablishment, falling industry levies, and reductions to our baseline funding, this is not without its challenges. We have, however, succeeded in meeting all of our strategic targets for the 2025/26 financial year: delivering robust decisions, research contributing to our understanding of New Zealanders’ trust in media, updated data on public attitudes towards offensive language, and ensuring broadcasters and the public know about and understand the standards system.
Complaint numbers have continued to drop from the near-record high numbers we saw at the start of the 2020s – for a second year in a row we received fewer than 100 formal complaints. This is not surprising and is in line with falling audiences for ‘traditional’ broadcasting, a reluctance from many people to be named in published decisions, and the changing ways people consume media. A complaints system that takes several months to complete, and that can only address individual broadcasts, is not efficient or effective for today’s auto-scrolling, algorithm-driven consumption habits.
While complaint numbers were down, it was not a quiet year for the Authority. Substantial work was involved in our consideration of our first complaint about an online broadcaster. In addition, the publicity generated by the jurisdiction decision, and later the Government’s announcement it would abolish the Authority, led to us receiving 48 Official Information Act requests, compared with an average of around 10 that we usually receive in a year.
Like the rest of the public sector, we are required to do more with less and would likely see further reductions to baseline funding in coming years. Legislative change will become necessary soon regardless of whether legislation for our disestablishment is passed, as industry levies continue to fall in parallel with baseline funding, and it becomes increasingly difficult to achieve impact with an outdated statutory framework.
Susie Staley, MNZM
Chair
A limited number of print copies are available. To enquire about a print copy, email: info@bsa.govt.nz