Older women disappear from presenting roles across the BBC while older men are regarded as “gaining gravitas and wisdom”, according to an internal review of the broadcaster’s record on representation. It heard evidence that while older men are seen as becoming imbued with greater authority, older women had to either keep looking younger or develop “idiosyncratic personas”. While women outnumbered men in terms of presenters under 50, men “significantly outnumbered” women among the over-50s – with 237 women to 394 men. There were nearly twice as many older men than women – 31 compared with 16 – in BBC News. Within the nations and the English regions division, there were between three and four times as many older men as female presenters.