The BBC presenter and journalist Fiona Bruce admitted last week to hiding her grey hairs with dye, in The Telegraph. She went on to say, “there comes a point – especially if you’re a woman – when your career just falls off a cliff. I’m not being self-pitying. That’s just the way it is.”

In response, the new Director General of the BBC has made a pledge that age and gender will no longer be a career barrier. George Entwistle said he was “sorry that she feels that she has to say that”, but that he would make sure that all women would “get the right opportunities and are given the space they deserve”.

In the last few weeks Radio Four’s flagship morning news programme, Today, has come in for criticism over the dominance of male presenters and guests. The programme’s only regular female presenter is Sarah Montague. Entwhistle said that he wanted to see more women on air and a female presenter on the Today programme next time a vacancy came up.

He added that while he personally did not decide which guests appeared on air, or on screen, he believed he could change the culture of the organisation. “I’ll just make it clear to people that’s what I think.”