BBC treats everyone badly, says TV veteran

Responding to Selina Scott's claims that TV bosses carried out "casual maiming which leaves women with their confidence and career in tatters", Sissons said the same treatment "goes from top to bottom of the organisation, regardless of age or gender".

Scott, who now runs a farm near Ampleforth, in North Yorkshire, challenged the BBC's governing body, the BBC Trust, to address "blatant and sometimes malign sexism and ageism against women".

However, in a letter to a national newspaper, Sissons, 68, wrote: "What Selina seems to have missed is that this is the BBC way, and has been for many years. It was a bitter complaint that I heard regularly during the 20 years I worked in the newsroom.

"Not just highly paid women presenters get the treatment, but it goes from top to bottom of the organisation, regardless of age or gender.

"Hundreds of demoralised people at Television Centre will testify to this."

Sir Michael Lyons, the chairman of the BBC Trust, offered to meet Scott after she sent a dossier which she predicted will "trigger nothing short of a revolution within Television Centre".

The 59-year-old, once known as the BBC's "Golden Girl", said the corporation had done nothing to combat the under-representation of older women on television, and the "obsession" with youth had increased.

A trust spokesman said Sir Michael and another trustee, Mehmuda Mian, would be happy to meet Scott to discuss the issue.