Video on Demand

(asked on 19th February 2021) - View Source

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether his Department has made an assessment of whether Netflix’s best practice adoption of trusted BBFC ratings has encouraged other major streaming services to also adopt the BBFC’s ratings; and if he will encourage those services to do so.


Answered by
Caroline Dinenage Portrait
Caroline Dinenage
This question was answered on 26th February 2021

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.

While adoption of the BBFC’s age ratings by online platforms is currently voluntary, we welcome their usage by Video on Demand platforms. We were particularly pleased to see Netflix announce on 1 December 2020 that they have become the first platform to achieve complete coverage of their content under the BBFC’s ratings.

With it being such a recent development, the Government has not made any specific assessment of the impact of Netflix’s actions upon other streaming services. We will of course 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 in the coming years.

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