Philippines
In the Philippines, the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board, commonly known as MTRCB, implements and regulates local television content rating systems. On November 1995, the MTRCB has implemented only two television ratings: "General Patronage" and "Parental Guidance", in which these advisories are simply written on the upper left side or at the lower right side of the television screen.
On October 6, 2011, in order to encourage parents to supervise and be responsible with their children in watching television, the MTRCB has revamped its rating system, implementing a three-tiered system:
| Pictogram | Classification rating | English name | Filipino name | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| G | General Patronage | None | Suitable for all audiences. May apply to most children's programming, although informational, religious, how-to, or otherwise generally inoffensive content usually fall into this category. | |
| PG | Parental Guidance | Patnubay at Gabay | Programmes rated PG may contain scenes or other content that are unsuitable for children without the guidance of a parent. Programmes that are broadcasted live, i.e. variety and game shows such as It's Showtime, are typically rated PG for their suggestive dialogue or humor. | |
| Filipino: English: | SPG | Strong Parental Guidance | Striktong Patnubay at Gabay | Contains mature themes or moderate to intense violence, which may be deemed unfit for children to watch without strict parental supervision. Programmes such as those by World Wrestling Entertainment are usually rated SPG for violent content. It is contrary to the US ratings of TV-PG and TV-14. |
The new ratings was originally to have been a four-tiered system, composed of G (General Patronage), PG (Parental Guidance), SPG (Strong Parental Guidance), and M, but sometime before the implementation of the new system, the "M" rating was dropped.
The new ratings system is similar to the old one, but the look and the ratings themselves was completely revamped. The new system consists a new full-screen advisory of the program's rating which is flashed before every program, whatever the rating of such program is, except in the case of programs with SPG rating, wherein the rating must be aired twice (before the program and after a commercial break somewhere in the middle of the program). A rating logo then appears at the bottom right of the screen during a program if it was rated as such. Sometimes, when annotations are to be put and it takes the place of the logo, then it has to be put on the upper left side of the screen, opposite the logo of the TV station.
On February 9, 2012, the SPG rating has been implemented, which utilizes at least one of the following content descriptors: T for tema (themes), L for lengguwahe (language), K for karahasan (violence), S for sekswal (sex), H for katatakutan (horror) and D for droga (drugs). The rating was first broadcast on the film Cinco which was aired in ABS-CBN, where it had its old advisory.
Read more about this topic: Television Content Rating Systems