A public awareness campaign, designed to improve the understanding of the "12A" cinema rating, gets underway today. Centred on cinemas, the campaign will highlight on screen explanations as well as improved point of ticket sale information.
Improving the understanding of the "12A" cinema rating was one of the key outcomes of the extensive public consultation exercise carried out by the BBFC in 2004. The "12A" category replaced the mandatory "12" cinema rating in August 2002, joining "U" and "PG" as an advisory rating. "12A" rated films are suitable for children of 12 and over, but parents who would like to take children younger than 12 can do so. To help them decide which films are suitable for their children the Board provides Consumer Advice about the content of the films.
From now on at the beginning of "U", "PG" and "12A" rated films, immediately following the well known BBFC "black card", audiences will see an explanation of the meaning of the category that the film has been awarded.
Announcing the campaign, David Cooke, Director of the BBFC, said:
“Our research showed that around 40 per cent of people polledfully understood what the "12A" category means. That is actually quite good after only two and a half years, particularly when it was also clear from the research that there is still some confusion about what "PG" means, and that was introduced over 20 years ago! It was particularly good to see that the greatest understanding was among parents with children in the nine to eleven age range – the very people the category was designed for. However, parents with children younger and older than that group were confused. This had, in some cases, resulted in very young children being taken to see films unsuitable for them, causing disruption for other cinema goers, or older children being prevented from seeing "12A" films because their parents thought the "A" meant that the film contained adult themes.
We did consider whether a cut off age should be introduced to address the problem of very young children being taken to unsuitable films. But our current view is that imposing a mandatory lower age restriction on an advisory rating would only increase confusion. Instead, we decided to raise awareness of the meaning of the three advisory categories and the provision of Consumer Advice in the place where the public are most likely to be receptive to the campaign - at the cinema.
I am delighted to say that the film distributors and cinema exhibitors have agreed that the messages should appear at the beginning offilms. In addition we are currently talking to the Cinema Exhibitors Association about providing increased information in cinema foyers, and in particular at the point where tickets are sold. The film distributors have improved the provision of Consumer Advice on "12A" film publicity, as well as extending the provision of Consumer Advice to cover all categories. An overwhelming majority of respondents (almost 90 per cent) were in favour of this approach.
The "12A" category has been a real success with the audience for whomit was intended. But we owe it to the rest of the cinema going public to make sure that there is no confusion attached to any of the advisory categories.”
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