U.K.-produced music videos to get age ratings on YouTube, Vevo

The U.K. government and a film classification board have finalized a program to give age ratings to music videos produced in the country and streamed online, with minors restricted from watching videos rated for users 18 and older.

Sony Music, Universal Music and Warner Music will submit music videos produced in the U.K. to the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), the same organization that rates movies in the country.

The U.K. government introduced the process as a pilot project in October 2014, and has adopted it as a fixture, it said Tuesday in a press release.

"Many children have easy access to music videos online and some parents are rightly concerned that some of these contain imagery or lyrics not appropriate for a young audience," reads the release.

The move followed concerns over raunchy or explicit imagery in popular music videos such as Rihanna's S&M, Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines and Miley Cyrus's Wrecking Ball.

Since the pilot program began in October, 132 videos were submitted to the BBFC. Fifty-six have been rated for ages 12 and up, and 53 for ages 15.

Only one video, Dizzee Rascal's Couple of Stacks, is rated 18. The horror-themed video features the rapper Dizee dismembering several people with a knife in what appears to be a haunted house, much like a campy slasher B-movie.

On YouTube, the video will not play without confirming your age by signing in with your Google account.

"Movies in the cinema and music DVDs are age rated to inform the viewer and help parents to make informed choices," said Joana Shields, minister for internet safety and security. "We welcome this voluntary step from industry to bring internet services in line with the offline world."

The content warnings will appear for users outside the U.K. — Couple of Stacks is unviewable in Canada without signing into Google — but since this is a British initiative, videos made elsewhere will not be rated, or age-gated.