In most countries, a national organization rates the content of every film and some TV programs shown in that country, assigning each such program a classification which indicates how suitable the program content is for viewing by children (i.e. an “age rating”). Typically the organization has a classification scheme with about 5 values:
One will indicate that the program is suitable for viewing by children of all ages.
Several will correspond to ages below which children are not permitted or recommended to watch the program.
Some may also advise additional parental discretion.
The ageRatings array is used to describe such classifications. The API responses as a whole will include age rating classifications from one or more organizations, depending on the countries covered by Simply.TV’s contract with the client. The API response for a specific event will contain the classifications for the relevant program from a subset of those organizations, depending on the countries in which the program is broadcast and whether the program falls under the remit of those organizations. Each such classification will be described by an ageRatings object with the following values:
Property Name
Property Value
scheme
The name of the organization that issued the age rating classification.
rating
The age rating code issued by the organization, e.g. PG or 15.
age
Simply.TV’s attempt at converting the rating code to an equivalent age in years. In many cases there is an official equivalence. A code indicating suitable for viewing by children of all ages will be assigned a value of 0. Where the only condition related to a rating code is some sort of parental discretion, the code will be assigned an arbitrarily low value different from any other value in the scheme (most typically this will be 1).
Note that in some countries a “watershed” scheme applies to linear channels, where age ratings are not used (even for films given an age rating for viewing in a cinema), and instead all programs broadcast before a certain time in the evening must be suitable for viewing by children of all ages, and parental discretion is required for all programs broadcast after that time. The API responses for events on such linear channels will not typically include age ratings.
