BBC Radio 4 to launch female-led panel show
Where’s The F In News will be presented by Have I Got News For You series producer Jo Bunting
BBC Radio 4 is tackling the male-dominated panel show landscape with Where's The F In News, a women-led series created and presented by Have I Got News For You producer Jo Bunting.
Where’s The F In News will be a topical series which uses news as a “starting point for a number of fresh and funny challenges”. It will be an “energetic and intelligent female-anchored show” with a “predominantly female panel”.
Panel shows on radio and television – including Have I Got News For You – are notorious for their male dominance, and in 2014 the BBC’s director of TV promised to strive for better gender representation.
"We're not going to have panel shows on any more with no women on them," Danny Cohen told the Observer. "You can't do that. It's not acceptable."
Speaking about this gender imbalance and the concept behind Where’s The F In News, Bunting said: "Apparently if a woman speaks in a meeting for 50% of the time a man speaks, he genuinely thinks she's spoken the exact same amount as he has.
"When I read that, I thought, how can I really annoy that man? So I've created a show featuring a shedload of intelligent and funny women."
Apart from producing Have I Got News For You, Bunting also had a stint as a presenter on ITV's Loose Women from 2006 to 2008 and has reviewed the newspapers on This Morning. Bunting also did some of the voiceover for the BBC satire show Revolting earlier this year.
Where’s The F In News is expected to air in 2018 or 2019, along with a raft of new comedy shows recently announced by BBC Radio 4.
