I spent nearly five decades in the New Zealand broadcasting industry, most of it when the world was very different. They were times when a national radio network of frequencies was a hard won and expensive privilege, and the evening television news bulletins genuinely captured the country.
In that environment, the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) had a role to play. We accepted oversight because the airwaves were tightly controlled, the audience was captive, and with great privilege came great responsibility.
That world has gone. The BSA’s relevance has gone with it — and its recent move to start policing internet content is proof it is now fundamentally unfit for purpose.
The BSA was designed for a one-way world. That was when people had no realistic ability to answer back. If you said something on radio or television then, it sat unquestioned unless the newspaper printed a rebuttal the next day or somebody called talkback radio.
Public trust in the system relied, in part, on the existence of a state referee.
But in 2025, every New Zealander is a broadcaster. A teenager in Taranaki can reach more people on TikTok in three hours than a primetime show could in 1998. A Substack newsletter can set the national agenda more decisively than a flagship radio interview.
The audience no longer waits to be spoken to because it speaks back instantly. The conversation is fluid, decentralised, and global.
The BSA is still operating as if a small, licensed club is speaking to a passive public. It is not equipped — technically, philosophically or democratically — to judge internet speech.
By stepping into this arena, it has placed itself on a collision course with modern reality.
Here’s the first problem: inconsistency. The BSA can issue a ruling against a broadcast journalist for a comment that may be said by a You Tuber with ten times the audience, One is sanctioned. One is untouched. That is not a standard — that is theatre.
The second problem is consequence. Broadcasters are now chilled into caution — not by ratings or audience trust, but by a regulator stuck in a 1990s risk-averse mindset and what are often now referred to as “woke” ideas.
Therefore if you challenge the philosophy which says, among other thinking, that we must “honour” te Tiriti, accept that there are more than two genders and that burping cows are causing the climate to change then you’re unlikely to be a regular on mainstream and regulated media.
If you want passion, robust debate and uncomfortable questioning — the kind of thing that used to be the lifeblood of free societies — you’re more likely to find it now outside the mainstream media, unregulated entirely. The BSA is unintentionally pushing honest inquiry away from the institutions we actually want New Zealanders to trust.
Thirdly — and I say this bluntly — the BSA moves too slowly to matter. Online discourse evolves hour to hour. The BSA deliberates over weeks and delivers moral judgement when the conversation has long since moved on. It’s like sending a rescue boat to a shipwreck that happened last season.
I don’t say this with anger. I say it as someone who was part of the old system, who respects standards deeply, but who knows when an institution has reached the end of its natural life.
We need something new. Real transparency, not state-sanctioned truth. If genuine harm occurs — defamation, incitement, criminal harassment — it should be tested in court, in full sunlight, not in a quasi-legal back room designed for analogue television.
If trust in media is to be restored, it will come by allowing adults to hear, question, rebut and counter — not by quietly filtering the national conversation before it even leaves the studio.
The Broadcasting Standards Authority was right for the age of Geoff Robinson, Paul Holmes and those halcyon days of prime time, hour long TV current affairs shows. It is not right for the world of podcasts, livestreams, independent investigative Substacks and real-time commentary.
When a referee no longer understands the game being played — it’s time to change the referee.
Peter Williams was a writer and broadcaster for half a century. Now watching from the sidelines. Peter blogs regularly on Peter’s Substack - where this article was sourced.
The BSA was designed for a one-way world. That was when people had no realistic ability to answer back. If you said something on radio or television then, it sat unquestioned unless the newspaper printed a rebuttal the next day or somebody called talkback radio.
Public trust in the system relied, in part, on the existence of a state referee.
But in 2025, every New Zealander is a broadcaster. A teenager in Taranaki can reach more people on TikTok in three hours than a primetime show could in 1998. A Substack newsletter can set the national agenda more decisively than a flagship radio interview.
The audience no longer waits to be spoken to because it speaks back instantly. The conversation is fluid, decentralised, and global.
The BSA is still operating as if a small, licensed club is speaking to a passive public. It is not equipped — technically, philosophically or democratically — to judge internet speech.
By stepping into this arena, it has placed itself on a collision course with modern reality.
Here’s the first problem: inconsistency. The BSA can issue a ruling against a broadcast journalist for a comment that may be said by a You Tuber with ten times the audience, One is sanctioned. One is untouched. That is not a standard — that is theatre.
The second problem is consequence. Broadcasters are now chilled into caution — not by ratings or audience trust, but by a regulator stuck in a 1990s risk-averse mindset and what are often now referred to as “woke” ideas.
Therefore if you challenge the philosophy which says, among other thinking, that we must “honour” te Tiriti, accept that there are more than two genders and that burping cows are causing the climate to change then you’re unlikely to be a regular on mainstream and regulated media.
If you want passion, robust debate and uncomfortable questioning — the kind of thing that used to be the lifeblood of free societies — you’re more likely to find it now outside the mainstream media, unregulated entirely. The BSA is unintentionally pushing honest inquiry away from the institutions we actually want New Zealanders to trust.
Thirdly — and I say this bluntly — the BSA moves too slowly to matter. Online discourse evolves hour to hour. The BSA deliberates over weeks and delivers moral judgement when the conversation has long since moved on. It’s like sending a rescue boat to a shipwreck that happened last season.
I don’t say this with anger. I say it as someone who was part of the old system, who respects standards deeply, but who knows when an institution has reached the end of its natural life.
We need something new. Real transparency, not state-sanctioned truth. If genuine harm occurs — defamation, incitement, criminal harassment — it should be tested in court, in full sunlight, not in a quasi-legal back room designed for analogue television.
If trust in media is to be restored, it will come by allowing adults to hear, question, rebut and counter — not by quietly filtering the national conversation before it even leaves the studio.
The Broadcasting Standards Authority was right for the age of Geoff Robinson, Paul Holmes and those halcyon days of prime time, hour long TV current affairs shows. It is not right for the world of podcasts, livestreams, independent investigative Substacks and real-time commentary.
When a referee no longer understands the game being played — it’s time to change the referee.
Peter Williams was a writer and broadcaster for half a century. Now watching from the sidelines. Peter blogs regularly on Peter’s Substack - where this article was sourced.
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