Following concerns over music videos being overtly sexual and inappropriate for younger audience, the Government has decided to back a pilot scheme where online videos will receive a classification from the BBFC.

Initially, only videos from artists signed to Sony Music UK, Universal Music UK and Warner Music UK will be submitted for classification if their label thinks that they may receive a rating of 12 or over. Once videos have been rated, labels will then pass on the judgement to websites Vevo and YouTube for them to display the rating along with the video.

The scheme has received some positive feedback so far including from David Austin, assistant director for BBFC, said: "We are very pleased to see YouTube and Vevo displaying BBFC age ratings and BBFC insight for online music videos submitted to the BBFC for classification as part of this pilot.

"Parents taking part in our most recent review of the BBFC Classification Guidelines in 2013, expressed their concerns about the content of music videos online, in particular their role in the sexualisation of girls and portrayals of self-harm, drug use and violence in some music video content.

"We hope this pilot will provide consumers with information to help guide them and their families when accessing music videos online."

The overall aim of the pilot is of course to avoid children being exposed to material which is inappropriate. The idea is that parents can check the age rating of a video and exercise their own judgement as to whether it is appropriate for their child to watch.

This idea is great in theory however it is unlikely to stop many children and teenagers from watching certain videos as it doesn’t directly restrict their access, as pointed out by Vevo's Nic Jones. He said that Vevo were unlikely to include the implementation of an "age gate", to lock out younger viewers.
"At the moment there isn't a plan to restrict access. The aim isn't to make it harder to view music videos. We want to give information to the public so that they can make a choice on viewing material based on that information."

On that basis, it could be that not a lot will change. Children will always seek out things that they maybe shouldn’t be seeing; it’s all part of childhood curiosity. What the new scheme does do is empower parents with more information that they can use should they want to avoid their children seeing age inappropriate material.