Angela Rippon: BBC tried to make me quit at 50

23 March 2020

Angela Rippon has claimed the BBC tried to make her quit when she turned 50.

Angela Rippon

The 75-year-old journalist says the former director-general of the BBC, John Birt, took her aside at a Corporation party in 1995 to suggest that she step down from her role as a newsreader to "make way for the younger generation".

Speaking to the Mail On Sunday newspaper, she said: "I'd just turned 50 and he said to me, 'Angela, you'll have to accept you need to make way for the younger generation coming through.' I thought, 'I'll decide when I stop, thank you very much!'

"Well, I'm still working. And where exactly is John Birt? I remember thinking, 'Have you had this conversation with Terry Wogan, with Michael Parkinson?' Clearly he hadn't. That was the way women were regarded in television in those days."

Rippon is delighted that now, in 2020, women are treated equally as men in the newsroom.

She said: "What's really good is that nobody would dare say that to a woman today. Imagine the director-general telling someone like Katya Adler, 'Darling, it's time to stop.' Not going to happen"

The former 'Nine O'Clock News' presenter earned a reputation as someone who was completely unflappable on air but her first live report for television in 1967 for BBC Plymouth didn't go very smoothly.

She recalled: "I remember the first live report I did for television ... When I got home, my dad told me I looked like a rabbit caught in headlights. I was mortified. I said to him, 'I was talking live to thousands of people - you have no idea how nerve-racking that is.'

"My father, a Royal Marine turned engineer, said, 'Next time you look in the lens, just talk to me. Tell me the story.' "

Her father's advice helped her to stand her ground in the male-dominated industry as she went on report some of the biggest news stories including Princess Diana's funeral in September 1997.

Rippon - who is still a regular on TV on BBC consumer show 'Rip Off Britain', which she hosts with Julia Somerviller and Gloria Hunniford - added: "It comes down to the individual. If you stand your ground and say, 'I'm here to stay', then you will. I never had a problem. Yes, there were some women who were there as tokens. We have got to the stage where we can admit that. But the ones who survived did so because they could do the job as well as men, if not better."