Media Organisations

1. British Board Of Film
Classification (BBFC)

2. What is the BBFC?
• The BBFC is an organisation that regulates the movies’ age ratings in the UK, for
example U, PG or 12A.
• It decides whether a specific movie is suitable to show to all audiences. The BBFC
does this by going through the movie, and pointing out anything that would need
to be changed, so that people are able to watch it. This consists of any graphic
content or sexual content in the movie.
• There main aim is to ensure that children, and all filmgoers, are protected from
harm and illegal material.

3. How do they rate films?
• When a film is finished and ready to be seen its owner (often called the
‘distributor’) sends it in to the BBFC with an online form. The form gives them
vital information including how long a work is, when it is due to be released in
cinemas and what rating the distributor would like.
• It is important for them to know what rating a distributor would like, even if they
don’t agree to give it in the end, as it tells them what age group they think the
film is suitable for.
• The company must pay them to rate the film. They pay an amount of money per
minute, plus a small sum of money for their costs

4. History of the BBFC
• The British Board of Film Censors was established in 1912 by the film industry
when local authorities started to impose their own, widely varying, censorship
standards on films.
• The BBFC was set up in order to bring a degree of uniformity to those standards.
The object was to create a body which could make judgements that were
acceptable nationally. To this end the BBFC has needed to earn the trust of the
local authorities, Parliament, the press and the public. It must not only be
independent, but be seen to be so, taking care, for example, that the film
industry does not influence its decisions, and that, similarly, pressure groups and
the media do not determine its standards.

5. What is the ASA? (Advertising Standards
Authority)
• The Advertising Standards Authority is the UK’s independent regulator of
advertising across all media.
• Their work includes acting on complaints and proactively checking the media to
take action against misleading, harmful or offensive advertisements.
The types of ads they deal with include:
• Magazine and newspaper advertisements
• Radio and TV commercials (not programmes or programme sponsorship)
• Television Shopping Channels

6. The history of the ASA
• Advertisements were controlled by legislations, when they were created and
broadcasted in 1955. This was the first time that advertisements and the claims
they made were subject to any form of formal regulation.
• In 1961, the Advertising Association, following discussions with other industry
associations, agreed that it was important that advertisements were welcomed
and trusted by consumers in non-broadcast media too.
• As a result, the industry (agencies, media and advertisers) came together to form
the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) and produced the first edition of the
British Code of Advertising Practice.

7. What is PEGI? (Pan European Game
Information)
• The Pan-European Game Information (PEGI) age rating system was established to
help European parents make informed decisions on buying computer games. It
was launched in spring 2003 and replaced a number of national age rating
systems with a single system now used throughout most of Europe.
• This consists of 30 countries which rate the video games that are released in
them. All of the countries have the same age rating for a specific video game.

8. The history of PEGI