Channel 12 Faces Surge in Public Complaints While Channel 14 Sees Decline

The 2025 Public Complaints Commissioner report from Israel's Second Authority for Television and Radio reveals a sharp rise in viewer complaints against broadcasters, with a total of 14,648 complaints submitted in 2025, marking a 73.6% increase from approximately 8,400 complaints in 2024.

Channel 12's Keshet group and its news company lead by a wide margin, receiving 3,633 and 2,752 complaints respectively, totaling 6,385 complaints. The most complained-about broadcast was an interview with Rami Davidian on the program "Ofira and Lavinson," which drew 3,148 complaints accusing the show of humiliating and offensive treatment of the interviewee; these complaints were deemed justified by the commissioner.

Additional complaints targeted various Channel 12 news events, including 851 complaints over a false report by a channel analyst about the Shin Bet chief's imminent resignation, and 457 complaints against "Studio Friday" following remarks by Guy Peleg who called the prime minister "Little Erdogan" and accused the government of endangering Israel. Other complaints concerned interruptions of the prime minister's speech during the news broadcast and a comment referring to a planned humanitarian city in Gaza as a "concentration camp."

Conversely, Channel 14 continued a consistent decline in complaints, dropping from 7,258 in 2023 to 5,027 in 2024, and further down to 2,729 in 2025, a 45% decrease over two years. The report also notes that about 60% of all complaints in 2025 were upheld by the commissioner, totaling 8,845 justified complaints, a notably high rate compared to similar oversight bodies worldwide.