Grey hair is a sign of gravitas

London: For the men in television, grey hair is a sign of gravitas. For the women, it’s a sign they won’t be in television much longer.

Just 5 per cent of the presenters on screens are women over 50, a study has shown. Women account for nearly half of younger presenters, but that figure plummets to just one in five - 18 per cent - of older ones.

In the wake of the report, MPs and senior presenters accused Britain’s main broadcasters of “airbrushing” older women from our screens.

The figures were gathered by the Older Women’s Commission, set up by Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman.

Miss Harman said: “Older women fall into a black hole in broadcasting. They suddenly get cleared from our screens.

“It is not that women aren’t there. It is that they get to a certain age, then they find they are near the exit and they get pushed out the door.

“You have to look as youthful as you can up to the age of 50. After 50, your days are numbered. That has got to change.”

Yesterday Esther Rantzen, 72, said she would “collapse in shock” if she was offered another mainstream presenting job.

She also accused the BBC of using consumer show Rip Off Britain - hosted by Angela Rippon, 68, Gloria Hunniford, 73, and Julia Somerville, 65 - as a “nature reserve for old ladies”.

In recent years, several high-profile female presenters, including Selina Scott, 62, and Anna Ford, 69, have complained about their treatment by major broadcasters.

Former Countryfile presenter Miriam O’Reilly, 56, who won a landmark ageism case against the BBC in 2011, said the latest figures were “shocking” and accused the corporation of lagging behind some other TV networks.

Out of 413 regular presenters, the BBC employs 25 women aged over 50 - for example Newsnight host Kirsty Wark, 58. This is still better than Channel 5 and ITN, which do not employ any older women presenters at all, and Sky, which has only one.

They were all outperformed by ITV, which said 55 per cent of its presenters over 55 were women. The broadcaster said it was unable to supply figures in the same format as its TV rivals.

Yet the latest Ofcom figures show over-55s watch an average of 5.3 hours of TV each day, more than an hour above the national average.

Former That’s Life presenter Miss Rantzen said: “It is not the viewers voting older women off the screen, absolutely not that. It is very strange.

“[Rip Off Britain] is a terrific programme and the women are very good journalists and very good presenters, but it is as if it’s some sort of special nature reserve for old ladies.

“It is almost as if in television, if you employ an old lady, it becomes a conscious gesture. We have got to have our token old lady.”

She added: “I guest a lot, I get invited to appear and be interviewed and that sort of thing. But I think if anybody invited me to present a programme I might collapse in shock.”

Miss Hunniford, of Rip Off Britain, declined to comment on Miss Rantzen’s remarks, but said she did not feel age had impeded her career. “I went in to broadcasting in 1969 and I have never had to look for a job and I have never been out of work and at the minute I am busier than I have ever been,” she said.