Music Video Regulations

Media regulation is the control or guidance of mass media by governments and other bodies which is sometimes overseen by an independent regulatory body who may have the power to issue fines or warnings.

Who controls regulations? 


An organisation known as the BFFC controls regulations for music videos which they don’t tend to add age restricting rules unless it contains adult-content. Their aim is to improve child protection online. Vevo and YouTube, are working in partnership with the BBFC, and are making a permanent pilot scheme to age rate all music videos by artists signed to Sony Music UK, Universal Music UK and Warner Music UK that are unsuitable for younger children (under 12s).


Media regulation was brought in due to the issues raised by the public from online videos and TV showing violence, drug abuse and nudity. BFFC then brought in the idea of music video regulation, in which only people above a certain age can watch these music videos. 

The record labels submit to the BBFC any music video by their artists for release online in the UK which they would expect to receive at least a 12 rating.  The BBFC then classifies each video, watching it through in its entirety and then assigning an age rating and bespoke content advice (BBFCinsight, for example, strong language, sex references or sexualised nudity) on the basis of the BBFC's published Classification Guidelines.  The sort of issues the BBFC considers in classifying music videos include:

• Drug misuse 
• Dangerous behaviour presented as safe
• Bad language
• Sexual behaviour and nudity
• Threatening behaviour and violence  

Difficulties with implementing music video regulations

One difficulty of implementing music video regulations is that online content can be published freely and anyone can produce explicit content. This is one of the main big issues the BBFC face as it can be very hard for them to conquer people from doing this online. It is even more difficult to tell who runs independent blogs, websites etc and there is no accountability. The BFFC have been requesting members of the online community to report any content that might be considered as unlawful or explicit.

One of the other difficulties with implementing would be that children or anyone for that matter, can create fake profiles online on sites such as YouTube and Vevo, by changing their date of births to a earlier date when signing up to be able to watch an age restricted video, and there's no way that the website, can tell if they are being truthful or not. This allows children to watch videos with age restrictions on and there is nothing they can do about it. For example a 10 year old could be watching a 15 age restricted video.

Example of a video that has been banned:

Born Free - M.I.A

This music video is a very provacative and contravercial music video, that has had a lot of bad reviews and has also been banned. 'Born Free' can not be easily watched as it is age restricted which means that you will have to make an account with YouTube which the right age rating in order to see this video. However, as above it is stated that it is easy for anyone to make a fake account and put a different age in, meaning that mostly anyone can watch this video. I think that age rating a video is not very effective and that the public will find a way of watching the video, plus by it being age rated means that probably the public will be more attracted to the video and this will make them watch it. In the video, is ginger genocide, as the red haired among us are rounded up by a SWAT team and tortured.