BBC News presenter Susan Osman, 51, claims that she has been forced to move to Beijing to escape the corporation\u2019s ingrained \u201cculture of ageism\u201d.
\n to take over a leading programme in China.<\/p>\n
Osman has worked in broadcasting for 28 years, presenting bulletins on BBC World and reporting for ITN News. She fronted the Bristol-based Points West on BBC One for 14 years, but now has been hired to take over a leading programme in China.<\/p>\n
She says that her age has become an insurmountable barrier in Britain, and has accepted a job hosting a prime-time breakfast show on China Radio International and is moving to Beijing.<\/p>\n
Ms Osman said: \u201cThere seems to be a culture of ageism in broadcasting in this country, and it particularly affects women.\u201d She attended a series of auditions for BBC jobs and been told she was \u201cmarvellous\u201d. But she was consistently overlooked, without explanation.<\/p>\n
She says that British women face ageism in broadcasting when they reached their 40s, but that their longevity is an asset in Asia. \u201cIn China they revere experience,\u201d she said. \u201cThe older you are the better. I got the impression that my future boss actually wanted me to be older when I finally told him my age during the interview.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cI\u2019ve had so many female colleagues who have dropped out in their early forties, which is a shame because an older woman can bring wisdom and empathy. There don\u2019t seem to be many places for older women in broadcasting in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n
A BBC spokesman said: \u201cBroadcasting, especially presenting, is an extremely competitive industry and the nature of it is such that many broadcasters are freelance artists on contracts of specific durations,\u201d he said. \u201cAgeism has nothing to do with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The BBC was involved in an ageism row when Arlene Phillips, 66, was replaced as a judge on Strictly Come Dancing by Alesha Dixon, 31, a decision criticised by a government minister.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BBC News presenter Susan Osman, 51, claims that she has been forced to move to Beijing to escape the corporation\u2019s ingrained \u201cculture of ageism\u201d. to take over a leading programme in China. Osman has worked in broadcasting for 28 years, presenting bulletins on BBC World and reporting for ITN News. She fronted the Bristol-based Points […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-218256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218256\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}