History of the BBFC; Introduction

The British Board of Film Classification is an independent, non-governmental body, which has exercised responsibilites over cinema for more than ninety years, and over video since 1985

Cinema
- The British Board of Film Censors was established in 1912 by the film industry when local authorities started to impose their own, widely varying, censorship standards on films
- The Board was set up in order to bring a degree of uniformity to those standards, aiming to create a body which could make judgements that were nationally acceptable
- To gain credibility, the Board had to earn the trust of the local authorities, Parliament, the press and the public
- It has always aimed to remain unbiased towards the film industry's requirments, whilst also trying to classify fairly
- Local authorities have the right to overrule the BBFC's classifications, although it has become common practice to accepts their judgement

Video
- In light of the 'Video Nasties' in the early 1980's, Parliament passed the Video Recordings Act in 1984
- This act states that video recordings offered for sale or hire in the UK must be classified by an authority, a role later given to the BBFC