A Wellington man has been fined $50 for a "frivolous and trivial" complaint that alleged TVNZ inaccurately reported the distance of a supernova star from Earth.

An item on One News, broadcast in January, reported that a supernova discovered by a 10-year-old Canadian girl was in a galaxy 240 light years away. The correct distance is 240 million light years.

The complainant said our planet would have been burnt to a crisp if a supernova was only 240 light years away.

TVNZ acknowledged the mistake but did not uphold the man's complaint. Dissatisfied, the complainant took the matter to the Broadcasting Standards Authority. It dismissed his "frivolous and trivial" complaint and ordered him to pay TVNZ costs of $50 as a deterrent.

"He has now been warned numerous times about lodging complaints of this nature, and it is evident that his complaints expend a significant amount of both TVNZ's and the authority's time and resources."

The man, who receives the invalids benefit and pension, generated about 5 per cent of complaints received about TV One in 2009 and 2010.