Countryfile presenter dropped for not being ‘young or pretty’ returns to show

The former Countryfile presenter Charlotte Smith, who was told she was “not young or pretty” enough to present the show, will return to the BBC1 rural affairs series next month.

Smith was one of four female presenters in their 40s and 50s who Countryfile axed as part of a controversial primetime revamp five years ago.

Her fellow presenter Miriam O’Reilly, who was also dropped, later won a landmark age discrimination case against the BBC when a tribunal ruled that she had been axed because of her age and victimised by management.

Smith, 49, is the first of the four presenters to return to the programme, which has become one of BBC1’s most popular shows since it moved from Sunday mornings to a new Sunday evening slot, presented by Matt Baker.

Her return comes as the BBC faces further scrutiny over the lack of women and older faces at the corporation, both on and off screen.

The BBC Trust has told management that they should put more women on air as a “matter of urgency”.

Its acting chair, Diane Coyle, said putting more older women on screen could make an immediate difference, better reflecting the diversity of an “increasingly kaleidoscopic nation”.

Smith, a presenter on BBC Radio 4’s Farming Today, was one of four presenters dropped when the programme was revamped in 2009, along with O’Reilly, Michaela Strachan and Juliet Morris.

O’Reilly later launched legal action against the corporation, winning her case in 2011. She subsequently returned to the BBC, only to leave again less than a year later complaining of executives’ hostile attitude towards her.

In evidence given to O’Reilly’s tribunal in 2010, Smith said: “I was told by a member of the team that I would not be able to pass the primetime test because I was not young or pretty.”

Countryfile was relaunched with a number of new presenters, fronted by Baker and the former Watchdog presenter Julia Bradbury, who has now left the show. Smith told the tribunal: “I don’t feel the new presenters are doing anything that I am not capable of.”

It is thought Smith will return to the show on holiday cover, but BBC insiders said she may become a regular member of the presenting team.

O’Reilly’s tribunal was the first time an age discrimination case has been upheld against the corporation, which apologised to her and promised an immediate overhaul of how it recruits and appoints its presenters.

She returned to the BBC to present a spinoff of BBC1’s Crimewatch, but left nine months into a new three year contract. She said it was “very quickly clear that I was not going to receive fair treatment”, and blamed “seething resentment” among executives that she had taken on the BBC and won.

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