The head of the BBC has admitted there are not enough older women appearing in television’s top programmes and presenting roles.

Despite undergoing a revolution in recent years that has seen more women take top leadership roles, Mark Thompson said the publicly-funded broadcaster still has a case to answer about the way it treats older women on the air.

The director-general conceded the landmark age-discrimination employment tribunal brought by ex-Countryfile presenter Miriam O’Reilly case was an important wake-up for the whole BBC and marked a turning point of its handling of the issue.

Mr Thompson said in the Daily Mail: “Let’s not mince words: those who say that the BBC has a case to answer about the way it treats older women on the air are right. We do.

“There are manifestly too few older women broadcasting on the BBC, especially in iconic roles and on iconic topical programmes.”

He added: “The BBC is in a different class from everyone else, and that the public have every right to expect it to deliver to a higher standard of fairness and open-mindedness in its treatment both of its broadcasters and its audiences.”

Mr Thompson said a growing number of older women held top executive roles at the corporation, but admitted it has “too few women in key news and current affairs presenting roles, especially when it comes to the big poli-tical interviews”.

He continued: “Of the 12 members of our executive board, five are female, all of them, and no, there isn’t a completely satisfactory way of saying this, are older women.

“Critical BBC services – including both Radio 4 and BBC Two – are in the hands of exceptional women controllers. BBC News, once an almost entirely male management domain, is largely led by women.

“But we’ve yet to see the same rate or scale of change on the air.”