The next new presenter of Woman’s Hour should be a man

It seems incredible now but when the BBC’s youth station, Radio 1, was launched in 1967 there were no female presenters. That’s right. Not a single woman’s voice to leaven the mix of Fluff, Blackburn and co. One-half of the young people the Corporation was hoping would stay tuned beyond Listen with Mother and Children’s Hour were burning their bras and demanding the pill. Yet the world presented to them by Auntie was strictly male-only. It took three years before Annie Nightingale was allowed behind the mike, and several more before she had company.

Lessons had been learnt by the time Radio 5 Live was launched 27 years later, and in spite of its dedication to rolling news and sport (still not thought entirely appropriate for fluffy female discourse), the very first voice to be heard was that of Jane Garvey. (This was perhaps not so surprising given that the controller of the station was none other than the pioneering Jenny Abramsky.) Yet it looks now as if the Corporation has gone into reverse gear. How many female presenters are there on Radio 1? Or perhaps more significantly on 2, the BBC’s most successful radio station? How many hours in the day are shepherded by a female voice? How many station controllers are female? (Just one — the incisive but inclusive Gwyneth Williams on Radio 4.)

Over on 5 Live, Garvey’s pacemaking initiative was not followed up and very soon the station became known as a bloke’s paradise, until the arrival of Victoria Derbyshire and Shelagh Fogarty, whose award-winning skills, drawing out politicians, chatting to listeners, leavened the mix of blokeish banter. Now, though, the network’s schedules have been shook up and given ‘an exciting new line-up’. And guess what? There are virtually no women in the mix.