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LONDON, England / Daily Mail / Femail / July 25, 2009
By Selina Scott
On a sultry evening earlier this month in a fashionable Chelsea Garden Square, I was a guest at David Frost and his wife Carina's summer party.
Amidst the glitterati and banks of famous faces, I was amused to see a greying, endangered tribe ambling with their champagne flutes seeking out their chief, one of the most powerful men in British broadcasting, Mark Thompson director general of the BBC.
Selina Scott, 58, speaks for her generation.
This hitherto impregnable bunch - male TV presenters over 50 - have recently been maligned by one of the Director General's youthful female executives, Emma Swain, who disparagingly dubbed them 'Silverbacks' - an on-screen species now ripe for culling from the BBC.
What consternation. Could they be about to follow their female colleagues into the television wilderness?
Perhaps, unless Mark Thompson - who 'played Nelson' when he saw women of a certain age in television losing their jobs - puts a protection order on them.
I first met Mark a quarter of a century ago on Breakfast Time when he was young and sweet.
I'd come on a different route having been head hunted from ITV's News At Ten. From 6.30am to 9.30am, every day, I was presenting live television.
That meant a great deal of research. I didn't have time to eat or drink so the show's producer enlisted Mark to help with everything from briefing notes to fetching my cornflakes from the canteen.
Mark was deemed to have the kind of calm intelligence perfect for coping with the stresses and strains I was suffering.
Tall and rangy in dishevelled suit and tie, Mark greeted me when I arrived at Lime Grove studios in West London each morning at dawn.
He took the brunt of all my frustrations at the so many little things that flared in the run-up to the show.
Mark never argued or lost his temper. He was just there, an ally, and I fondly appreciated everything he did for me, although at times I admit I treated him as I might an annoying little brother, especially when he had the temerity to insist I ate every cornflake brought in a bowl he'd carefully carried from the canteen.
Mark, in those days, didn't have a sexist or ageist bone in his body. He was 25 and I, 31.
Ageism didn't mean much to either of us I guess. There were no older women on screen, no role models to emulate when I started out.
Axed: Arlene Phillips, 66, has been dropped as a judge on BBC show Strictly Come Dancing
In news and current affairs then there was just me, and two other young women, Anna Ford and Angela Rippon, along with a pile of older men like Alastair Burnet and Sandy Gall.
I've remained friendly through the years with Mark, but I'm bound to say I'm disappointed with the continued discrimination against women presenters which has developed like a virulent virus under his watch.
I expected him to be far more female-friendly and understanding, and far more aware of the value personalities such as Arlene Phillips bring to shows they appear in.
Arlene, of course, is the latest victim of the latest bout of ageism emanating from the BBC.
Her expulsion from Strictly Come Dancing, at the age of 66, in favour of the much younger singer Alesha Dixon, who is 30, and former ballerina Darcey Bussell, 40, flies in the face of the new age discrimination regulations.
This is why Harriet Harman, the minister for women and equality, intervened so vocally on Arlene's behalf, insisting she be reinstated.
As a minister and a woman at the heart of Government policy-making, Harman knows the new 'Age Act' well.
It is illegal to discriminate on the grounds of age. Period. In Arlene's case, replacing a person with someone half her age without excellent reason is prima facie evidence that the BBC has broken the law.
Talented, articulate and hugely experienced, Arlene - whose contribution to Strictly Come Dancing has always been first class - has been handed a kind of poor consolation prize if she agrees to go quietly.
She's been offered some kind of undefined commentary job on the teatime One Show.
There are those who advocate Arlene take the route I took when I sued Five last year, and publicly challenge the BBC over her sacking. [
rc]
Read on
© 2009 Associated Newspapers Ltd
This hitherto impregnable bunch - male TV presenters over 50 - have recently been maligned by one of the Director General's youthful female executives, Emma Swain, who disparagingly dubbed them 'Silverbacks' - an on-screen species now ripe for culling from the BBC.
What consternation. Could they be about to follow their female colleagues into the television wilderness?
Perhaps, unless Mark Thompson - who 'played Nelson' when he saw women of a certain age in television losing their jobs - puts a protection order on them.
I first met Mark a quarter of a century ago on Breakfast Time when he was young and sweet.
I'd come on a different route having been head hunted from ITV's News At Ten. From 6.30am to 9.30am, every day, I was presenting live television.
That meant a great deal of research. I didn't have time to eat or drink so the show's producer enlisted Mark to help with everything from briefing notes to fetching my cornflakes from the canteen.
Mark was deemed to have the kind of calm intelligence perfect for coping with the stresses and strains I was suffering.
Tall and rangy in dishevelled suit and tie, Mark greeted me when I arrived at Lime Grove studios in West London each morning at dawn.
He took the brunt of all my frustrations at the so many little things that flared in the run-up to the show.
Mark never argued or lost his temper. He was just there, an ally, and I fondly appreciated everything he did for me, although at times I admit I treated him as I might an annoying little brother, especially when he had the temerity to insist I ate every cornflake brought in a bowl he'd carefully carried from the canteen.
Mark, in those days, didn't have a sexist or ageist bone in his body. He was 25 and I, 31.
Ageism didn't mean much to either of us I guess. There were no older women on screen, no role models to emulate when I started out.
Axed: Arlene Phillips, 66, has been dropped as a judge on BBC show Strictly Come Dancing
In news and current affairs then there was just me, and two other young women, Anna Ford and Angela Rippon, along with a pile of older men like Alastair Burnet and Sandy Gall.
I've remained friendly through the years with Mark, but I'm bound to say I'm disappointed with the continued discrimination against women presenters which has developed like a virulent virus under his watch.
I expected him to be far more female-friendly and understanding, and far more aware of the value personalities such as Arlene Phillips bring to shows they appear in.
Arlene, of course, is the latest victim of the latest bout of ageism emanating from the BBC.
Her expulsion from Strictly Come Dancing, at the age of 66, in favour of the much younger singer Alesha Dixon, who is 30, and former ballerina Darcey Bussell, 40, flies in the face of the new age discrimination regulations.
This is why Harriet Harman, the minister for women and equality, intervened so vocally on Arlene's behalf, insisting she be reinstated.
As a minister and a woman at the heart of Government policy-making, Harman knows the new 'Age Act' well.
It is illegal to discriminate on the grounds of age. Period. In Arlene's case, replacing a person with someone half her age without excellent reason is prima facie evidence that the BBC has broken the law.
Talented, articulate and hugely experienced, Arlene - whose contribution to Strictly Come Dancing has always been first class - has been handed a kind of poor consolation prize if she agrees to go quietly.
She's been offered some kind of undefined commentary job on the teatime One Show.
There are those who advocate Arlene take the route I took when I sued Five last year, and publicly challenge the BBC over her sacking. [rc]
Read on
© 2009 Associated Newspapers Ltd
