The Channel 4 study identified news and soaps as programme genres where women had a slight majority when it came to major roles (59 per cent for news and 55 per cent for soaps) while the split in roles overall in soaps was about equal.

King also addressed the “sexual objectification” of men, but stressed it was to be understood in the context of the sexism women have been subjected to for centuries.

“There is a growing amount of sexual objectification of men but you’ve got to remember the context in which that takes place – the 500 years of patriarchy towards women and the impact on men and their careers.

“When a man does a scene like that, it doesn’t put him in a box they can’t get out of. You find often that when a woman comes across like that then she is labelled – ‘she’s got her kit off, she’s that type of woman’. So overall the increasing objectification we have, partly because of our celebrity culture, impacts women worse than men.”

While sexism perhaps isn't as blatant as in decades past, King pointed out: “There is no doubt that, albeit at a low level, these sexist incidents are contributing to the perpetuation of sexism in the real world.”

Progress, eh.

Images: Rex Features / Thinkstock

UK television guilty of ‘ingrained, low-level sexism’