Media and ‘mingers’

TV news anchorwoman Anne Doyle’s decision to take redundancy from RTÉ has provoked much in the way of public comment.

That Doyle herself has chosen voluntarily to step down from her prime time news slot after 33 successful years of broadcasting, is neither here nor there: what is however, is the issue of older women in the highly visual medium of television.

A recent comment by media veteran Esther Rantzen highlights the different attitudes of management at RTÉ and Britain’s BBC. Despite an award-winning career that ultimately spanned more than four decades, the 71-year-old journalist and broadcaster confessed to dying her hair blonde “as a way of trying to ensure that I kept my job past the age of 40”.

“I was told that if I ever allowed the first grey hairs to show that would have been like writing my own professional suicide note,” she said.

Hardly the sentiments one expects from a media maven renowned for her combative nature and forthright views. But Rantzen’s concerns about ageism and sexism in the media are widely shared among her peers.

In 2008, television presenter Selina Scott was awarded a £25,000 settlement from Channel Five after launching an age-discrimination claim. The then 57-year-old Scott accused Channel Five of ageism after it offered her a high-profile position but then gave the job to two younger broadcasters.

Fellow broadcasters Moira Stuart (61), Anna Ford (67), and Angela Rippon (66) claim to have been sidelined in favour of men, or overlooked because of their age, with Rippon saying earlier this year that when she was 50 she was told by former BBC director Lord Birt that she had to “make way” for younger women.

In 2009, 53-year-old television presenter Miriam O’Reilly successfully sued the BBC for age discrimination, following her claim that she and three other women in their 40s and 50s were dropped from the rural affairs programme Countryfile because their BBC boss Jay Hunt “hated women”. That Jay Hunt is a woman who, according to a BBC spokesman, “has been instrumental in the success of many women’s television careers including Sheila Hancock, Anne Robinson, Alex Jones, Rosa Monckton and Fiona Bruce,” added a twist to a tale that ended with an apology from the BBC and a commitment to introduce new guidance on fair selection procedures for presenters.

O’Reilly’s triumph provoked some ire among her fellow broadcasters, with former Crimewatch presenter Nick Ross (63) saying that...“in 40 years in TV I never worked with a minger” — presumably a reference to O’Reilly’s claim that she was sidelined because of her ageing appearance.

“The fact is that looks are important,” said Ross, who, in 2007, departed his post on Crimewatch after 23 years, amid speculation that his age might have been a factor.

He went on to say that in an industry awash with youthful talent, older presenters cannot live in a “gilded cage” — a comment that doubtless rattled many cages, gilded or otherwise. Certainly, Angela Rippon wasn’t buying into it. In an interview with the Telegraph, she said “the British public doesn’t give a toss about the age or sex of a presenter as long as that presenter is doing a good job”.

By contrast, former broadcaster Sue Lawley (65) slammed her female contemporaries for blaming ageism for the downturn in their careers, and said they should be “glad they had the opportunity in the first place”.

“I believe that broadcasters have the right to put on the front of their programmes the people that they want,” she said. “Whether their judgement is correct is another matter. Those of us who have appeared on TV have enjoyed our moments in the sun, and if, after five years, they don’t want us, well that happens.”

A comment that hardly endeared her to other former broadcasters, most notablly, the grande dame of British broadcasting, Baroness Joan Bakewell (78), who in an article in the Guardian, spoke of an “air of concern, if not panic, among women television presenters as they get older”.

So what’s it like on this side of the pond? How are media women of a certain age faring?

Or, in the minefield of political correctness, might one be accused of ageism/sexism by even posing such a potentially ageist/sexist question? There’s no denying Nick Ross’s contention that the industry is “awash” with youthful talent — one glance at the daytime TV line-up of bright young things confirms it. But should this pose a threat to their more mature counterpars?

Speaking recently, the , RTÉ presenter Mary Kennedy said she was “perfectly happy with what I’m doing right now”.

With a career in broadcasting stretching back to 1978, Kennedy has moved seamlessly from continuity announcing to newscasting to presenting. She now co-presents the hugely popular thrice-weekly local affairs programme, Nationwide, and looks set to continue in her career.

Then there’s 50-year-old Miriam O’Callaghan, who juggles the demands of prime-time broadcasting with, arguably, the even greater demands of her role as mother of eight.

O’Callaghan also hosts a weekly radio chat show and runs a television company, Mint Productions, with her husband, RTÉ’s director of programmes Steve Carson.

In an interview ahead of her 50th birthday, O’Callaghan said that she never understood “this thing of fighting against getting older. There’s no point in trying to be something that you were, or trying to compete with someone who’s 16, but you have to be happy in where you are and who you are.”

And one doubts the supremely savvy doyenne of prime-time newscasting, Anne Doyle, spends much time agonising over her appearance, although with her immaculately-coiffed hair, flawless make-up and discreetly funky jewellery, the lady does make an effort.

Ditto Eileen Dunne, the 50-something newscaster and presenter who joined RTÉ in 1980 as a radio continuity announcer and who is now chair of the Irish section of the Association of European Journalists.

Marian Finucane, who joined RTÉ as a continuity announcer in 1976, is now its highest female earner with an annual salary of €513,270 in 2009. Though more at home on radio, where she hosts her hugely popular weekend lunchtime shows on RTÉ Radio 1, the Jacob’s Award winner has hinted that she wouldn’t be averse to presenting a chat show — and her ratings clout could see the 60-something land a plum weekend position.

So: no shortage of powerful women of a certain age in Montrose. Indeed, it could be argued that they’re quelling the rise of younger women, but, of course, such an argument is in itself ageist, and facile. And this discrimination doesn’t apply only to women. The presidential race saw Michael D Higgins being pilloried for daring to compete at the venerable age of 70. And we all know how that played out.