Talk:British Board of Film Classification

film / video

The introduction is, I believe, wrong.

The BBFC is not legally responsible for film classification. Cinema licensing is a matter for local authorities (who 99.9999% of the time require cinemas to follow the BBFC rating).

On the other hand, the BBFC is responsible for video classification, having been nominated to perform that role under the Video Recordings Act 1984. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 135.196.89.57 (talk) 19:21, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually the Video Recordings Act 2010 [1], which re-enacted the provisions of the flawed 1984 Act which was discovered to be technically deficient in 2009 (through its terms not having being communicated to the EU) and not enforceable. -- Arwel Parry (talk) 19:36, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 1

Why does someone keep adding Happy Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 1 as an example of a 12A? Sure, the Odeon website says it is but the film hasn't officially been rated yet. I've changed it to 500 Days Of Summer, which is a recent(ish) 12A I'm sure most people have heard of. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.111.171.67 (talk) 20:05, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Not a citicism of you, but I've reverted this back to the earlier example oif Avatar, simply because more readers will be familiar with it, and therefore will have a better impression of what sort of content gets a 12A. The BBFC haven't rated Deathy Hallows yet, and while it may very well get a 12A (as previous ones in the series were), we can't jump the gun. Nick Cooper (talk) 22:58, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Constantly changing examples

We seem to have an issue here that editors - many anon IPs - are constantly changing the example films listed with each different certificate, often it seems due solely to favouritism. Nick Cooper (talk) 23:26, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Spelling Mistake

The Description/Notes column for the PG rating currently has the following:
"May contain moderate violance if justified..." - should be violence

If you have an account and you see this and have a minute, might be worth fixing.
92.10.49.235 (talk) 18:51, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Rating examples

I removed the list of examples from the BBFC table since I do not believe they have any encylopedic value. They have been restored with the edit summary "examples are there so we know". Know what exactly? Going back a year there were just a couple of examples for each certificate, but that has now ballooned to an indulgent dozen. It is certainly not necessary to have a dozen examples for each certificate, and it is debatable whether we should have any examples at all.

All of these examples have been arbitrarily selected by editors (the BBFC gets by without providing any examples in its summaries of the classifications) and it is possible we are mis-stating the BBFC's position here: some older films have had their classifications revised several times down the years due to the BBFC revising their criteria, so it is entirely possible that older classifications are no longer representative of how the BBFC classify films. While I actually think that including commentary on the classification process (i.e. why a film is rated 12 rather than 15, say) would benefit the article such examples whould be accompanied by sources and explicitly tackle the reasons for the classification. The examples column as it stands does not really offer any real insight into the classification process and seems to be just another form of WP:EDITORIALIZING. Betty Logan (talk) 11:54, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Governmental or non-governmental

The first paragraph says the BBFC is a non-governmental organization, but further down under Responsibilities and Powers the article says it is a governmental organization. This needs to be clarified but I don't know enough to fix it. Caffeinated42 (talk) 04:27, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

It is a non-governmental organization: [2]. I will correct the article. Betty Logan (talk) 04:39, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

There is a renewed discussion going on concerning the question of whether the BBFC is a QUANGO or some other sort of NGO. Some interesting comments have appeared within a "dubious" template attached to the statement that "the Board is a QUANGO" in the Responsibilities and Powers section of the article, as well as in some recent edit summaries. I'll repeat them here to make further discussion easier:

It's an NGO

• quangos are not independent, they're funded by the government; this isn't a quango
• it's not a public body, and is not funded by the government, and is NOT a quango, see quango page
• NGO, not quango. All quangos are NGOs but not all NGOs are quangos
• it's not on any official list of quangos I can find, and the references to it being so are rather dubious
• quangos are publicly funded and politically appointed; it's definitely an NGO though
• not publicly funded, nor politically elected, it's independent, and is not on any list of Quangos

It's a QUANGO

• yes it's QUANGO; it aquired statutory powers in 1984 when the government legally required all videos to be classified by it.
• the British government does not maintain a list of quangos, only a list of publicly funded non-departmental bodies which does not include the BBFC. Since 1984 the BBFC undertakes statutory legal duties for the government courtesy of the Video Recordings Act (1984 & 2011) which sets it apart from other non-governmental orgainizations and its previous incarnation prior to the Act.

References

Polly Tunnel (talk) 13:15, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

• Comment I am the editor that restored the description. I restored it because I believe that the editor that removed the term is confusing a QUANGO with a Non-departmental public body (NDPB). There is no hard definition of a Quango, as explained at the Parliament website. The British government maintains a list of NDPBs and the media often uses "quango" as shorthand to refer to an NDPB but they are not tautological terms: while all NDPBs may be quangos, they do not describe the full extent of quangos in existence. It is true that the BBFC is not a NDPB and it is true it it is a non-governmental organization, but it is not completely autonomous. It hasn't been since 1984 when it assumed the statutory duty to classify videos. It is answerable to the government in this regard and it also consults the government when setting its fees, so it is not fully autonomous. Prior to 1984 it would have been correct to refer to it as a non-governmental organization, but since 1984 it is more accurate to describe it as a quango. I didn't realize this had been discussed on previous occasions, but the points I make above are more or less the same points made at Talk:British_Board_of_Film_Classification/Archive_1#Quango. Betty Logan (talk) 15:20, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

No, all it can do is rate videos, games and films. Local authorities don't have to abide by its ratings, and they often decide to show films that have been failed by BBFC. It's not got any legal power at all. Quango stands for quasi-non governmental organisation, but it's actually non governmental, it has no legal authority at all, it's a bit like "Which" or even more like the "ASA"; it has influence, but no authority. Nor does it take a penny of public money; normal Quangos take public money. The primary issue of quangos, why they get a bad name, is that they both waste public money, and have little or no accountability. it doesn't apply in this case.GliderMaven (talk) 16:35, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

This is demonstrably incorrect. Physcial film media (i.e. video/DVD/BR) cannot be sold unless it is classified by the BBFC. You cannot sell an unrated video in the UK, and retailers must abide by the ratings. Councils do not need to abide by the rating for cinemas but they have no jurisdiction over video classification. It would have helped if you had read the article before commenting since this is all clearly explained. The Video Recordings Act 1984 established the legal authority of the BBFC under statute law. It would be helpful if you could explain how an organization that it is empowered by a government Act to classify physical film media and consults them on setting their fees is fully "autonomous". It clearly is not. It consults the government and is ultimately answerable to them for its actions under statute law. What you are taking as the definition of a "quango" is actually the definition of Non-departmental public body, which is a quango, but a quango is not necessarily a Non-departmental public body. Betty Logan (talk) 16:45, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Agreed. Local authorities can chose not to honour BBFC certificates for theatrical screenings, but on pre-recorded media they are legally binding. I think the BBFC may hold a fairly unique position, in that they are an industry body which - relatively recently - acquired statutory responsibilities, but clearly they do have them. Nick Cooper (talk) 15:42, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

If it's any help, ATVOD (the recently-defunct video-on-demand regulator) apparently also started as an industry body. It subsequently gained the power to charge compulsory registration fees and refer offenders to Ofcom for fines. ATVOD's wikipedia page calls it a quango, though I don't know if it's correct to do so. Polly Tunnel (talk) 16:09, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Ultimately we need to defer to sources on this issue: there is no precise definition of a quango (per the parliament website) but there are two observations we can probably all agree on: i) a non-governmental organization that is funded by the government is a quango; ii) an organization which is not funded by the government, is not empowered by the government and is not answerable to the government is not a quango. What we have in the case of the BBFC is a non-governmental organization that is not funded by the government but is not fully independent of them either. In such cases it is entirely valid to refer to such organizations as quangos if there are independent secondary sources that also describe them as quangos. In the case of the BBFC there are so Wikipedia's verifiability criteria has been met. However, I do agree that in such cases it is important to highlight any important distinctions, such as the BBFC's self-funded nature, and we do cover this is the same paragraph that describes it as a quango. Betty Logan (talk) 16:56, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

As we now seem to have consensus, does anyone object to the removal of the note from the article? Polly Tunnel (talk) 12:51, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

Obviously I don't object, but it's not really my place to say whether the tag should be removed or not since it is my version which is being challenged. Since you are the impartial editor here it is your call. Perhaps we could alter it slightly to state it is a "self-funded QUANGO", to differentiate it from the more common government-funded QUANGO. Betty Logan (talk) 22:32, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Other "rating"

What is with the separate message that sometimes appears on U rated home video releases. The logo is a family sat at a sofa and the annotation reads "it is recommended you watch with younger children on their first viewing", as can be seen here . Sure this is not a distinct certificate, and it accompanies U films that I guess aren't quite unsuitable enough for young children as PGs are, except presumably on that first viewing. I just wandered if it was the BBFC or someone else that brought this in.--TangoTizerWolfstone (talk) 18:02, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

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