Research finds just 2% of presenters, pundits or guests in sport shows are women, while sexism is most commonly found in comedy

Men are twice as likely to appear on television as women, according to a survey of all main channels in the UK, which also found as many as five sexist incidents an hour are broadcast during prime time.

Sexism, in the main directed at women, was most commonly found in comedy, according to the survey of programmes aired between 7pm and 11pm on BBC1 and BBC2, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky 1 over three months in 2015.

But the worst area for gender balance overall was sport with just 2% of presenters, pundits or guests women. Films were the next worst genre with just 26% of on screen roles filled by women during that time.

With men outnumbering women on TV by two to one in total, the study indicated that women were five times more likely to suffer something the report’s authors dubbed “low-level sexism” than men.

At an event to focus on the issue, DiverseTV, ITV chief executive Adam Crozier admitted it had been a slow-burning issue for the industry. “If this was a five-day Test match, we would be half way through the first morning. It’s far too early for anyone to be declaring victory.”

Soaps, with many strong roles for women, had a gender balance roughly split 50/50.

The study explored the age of men and women appearing on Britain’s TV screens and showed that although 36% of women in the UK are aged over 50, only 23% on TV are above this age. It revealed that up to the age of 40 women occupy between 40-45% of all appearances on TV. Women aged between 40 and 49 make up only 30% of TV appearances, just 25% when aged between 50 and 59 and 26% aged from 60 to 69.

As part of the study by the Communication Research Group, commissioned by Channel 4, 500 hours of primetime television were studied during three months last year.



Separately, Channel 4 chief executive David Abraham repeated his plea for the publicly owned commercially funded channel to remain out of private hands, saying that the need to make a profit started to “chip away” at diversity programmes eventually.

Asked how privatisation would affect its promises to increase diversity, Abraham said: “The comprehensive way in which we do it and the breadth with which we do it, given the size and scale of the organisation, would be impaired, there’s little doubt in my mind. It wouldn’t happen overnight but the pressure would come.”

He said the Channel 4 remit, which insists that the broadcaster serve specific audiences such as ethnic minorities, was an important driver of this.

“At the end of the day for a private company this is good practice, best practice, for me it’s not, I keep my job if I deliver the remit, if I fail Ofcom [could] get rid of me and I think that keeps us honest. It’s kept Channel 4 special for 33 years and I hope whatever happens in this debate that remit remains sacrosanct.”