Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether his Department (a) has made and (b) plans to make an assessment of how many video-on-demand platforms apply the BBFC age ratings framework; and what discussions he has had with relevant stakeholders on the proposed timeline for further platforms to adopt the BBFC classification system.

As the designated body for age classification of film content, the Government has great trust in the British Board of Film Classification’s (BBFC) best practice age ratings.

A number of video-on-demand services currently use BBFC ratings for some of their content, including Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Curzon Home Cinema and BFI Player. In December 2020, Netflix became the first video-on-demand service to achieve complete coverage of their content under the BBFC’s ratings.

We have not made an assessment of the number of services that use these ratings, though we have discussed with the BBFC and individual companies their current and potential future use of these ratings. We continue to engage with industry to encourage other platforms to adopt the BBFC’s ratings across all of their content, and will keep the evidence for legislation in this area under review.