Last year was the one where the presenters caused offence. Russell Brand, Jonathan Ross, Jeremy Clarkson and John Barrowman were all men behaving badly. But you don’t need to be a card-carrying feminist to wonder why female presenters don’t upset anyone? Answer: because there are hardly any of them, rude or otherwise.

Television, even in the 21st century, is mostly presented by men. There are practically no female chat-show hosts, few authoritative female experts and virtually no female quiz-show hosts. Even Carol Vorderman — never the lead presenter on Countdown — is thought expendable. A squint at the schedules confirms the trend. ITV’s three new flagship factual shows will be presented by Billy Connolly, Martin Clunes and Piers Morgan. The presenters of the BBC’s landmark Darwin season are David Attenborough, Andrew Marr, Jimmy Doherty and (on radio) Melvyn Bragg. And on Channel 4, Heston Blumenthal is the latest chef to join Jamie Oliver, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Gordon Ramsay in their campaigning kitchen.

If a commissioning editor wants a travel programme, Paul Merton, Michael Palin or Stephen Fry pack their bags. If they want a historian, they call Simon Schama, David Starkey or Niall Ferguson.

If it’s an arts programme, it is Tim Marlow, Andrew Graham-Dixon, Brian Sewell or our own Waldemar Januszczak.

Nor is this phenomenon confined to the big authored documentaries. Dorothy Byrne, head of Channel 4 news and current affairs, wonders why so many newsreaders are good-looking blondes in Chanel suits. “Amazingly, all the good female journalists who get to be presenters are also incredibly beautiful. They must have been blessed twice by God.” But it is not necessarily audiences who want this, Byrne says: “We did some research, and people want presenters who are credible and who look smart. It is TV executives who want presenters on their channels to be gorgeous.”

It’s the same story in comedy. “I’ve clawed at so many television doors, I have no nails left,” says the comedian Jenny Eclair. “I’m biting leather most of the time.” She may be a grumpy old woman (with a successful stage show), but the problem for older women in television is even more acute.

Selina Scott, 57, has just reached a six-figure settlement for age discrimination with Five. After reportedly being lined up to cover Natasha Kaplinsky’s maternity leave, she learnt the job would go to Matt Barbet, 32, and Isla Traquair, 28. It is no surprise to Judith Holder, producer of Grumpy Old Women. “I have sat in commissioning meetings where people say, ‘We don’t have to worry about making programmes for older women. They’re watching anyway.’ ” In cinema, she says, the success of Mamma Mia! was a wake-up call. But the news has not reached TV.

It’s not that there aren’t women on television, just that they tend not to be in the heavyweight roles.

Serious quiz shows such as Mastermind or University Challenge apparently need the likes of John Humphrys or Jeremy Paxman, just as science shows need a male prof, such as Robert Winston. On ITV, Parkinson has been replaced by Piers Morgan, and as Terry Wogan leaves the BBC’s Eurovision coverage, Graham Norton steps in. Even the recent Women in Film and Television Awards were hosted by a man, Gok Wan. “You have a point,” admits Sue Murphy, Channel 4’s head of features. “All the landmark series on all channels in recent years have been presented by men.”

Even in drama there is no escape. “For strong, tough women, there are few single leads,” says Jane Featherstone, who runs Kudos, the maker of Spooks and Hustle. “They tend not to achieve in terms of audience reaction.” Nobody is quite sure where it has all gone wrong, but in television drama, even Featherstone admits she consciously looks for male leads: “It’s that slightly old-fashioned thing of the audience need for a male hero.”

There are some explanations. Claudia Rosencrantz, who runs the female-oriented channel Living TV, says that, historically, there has been a distinction between presenters (Kirsty Young, Davina McCall) and performers (Ant and Dec, Harry Hill, Bruce Forsyth). “Performers came via a different, comedy and variety school of training, and there were probably fewer women coming through that way.” So, whereas performers have been trained for the role, presenters have to learn to work outside scripted material.

In addition, any female TV executive will tell you that shows about chimneys (the late steeplejack Fred Dibnah) or boats (Griff Rhys Jones) or archeology (Tony Robinson) appeal to the hobbyist in men. “Women tend not to have hobbies in the same way,” says Daisy Goodwin, who runs the independent production company Silver River. In comedy, she reckons it’s a failure of nerve. “It tends to have a very male audience, and men want male role models.” So, however much Richard Wilson, executive producer of Have I Got News for You, insists that the cast and crew are pussycats and not at all macho, Goodwin says it’s “quite a scary show. Women get made fun of”.

There is also a historical problem. “I don’t expect any man in the industry over the age of 52 or 53 to be entirely PC,” Goodwin says. When she started in television, 25 years ago, Channel 4’s Byrne was told one producer would put his hand up her skirt, but not to take it personally; he did it to everyone. “So, when he did it to me,” she says, “I didn’t complain.”

That kind of abuse no longer exists, and there is no shortage of powerful women in strong positions in television, but rarely in front of the camera. When they are, they are cast in the daughter/sidekick role. Kate Humble plays second fiddle to Bill Oddie, just as Tess Daly does to Bruce Forsyth. Could anyone imagine it being the other way round?

There are, of course, first-rate female presenters: Kirsty Wark on Newsnight, Davina McCall on Big Brother, Sarah Beeny on Property Ladder. But they still often come paired with a man (Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer, Richard and Judy, Sue Perkins and Giles Coren) or present shows on fashion (Trinny and Susannah), shopping (Mary Portas) or cleaning (Kim and Aggie). And, though everybody loves Cheryl Cole (to bits), she will never replace Simon Cowell.

Change may come. Eclair and Holder are working on an idea for a quiz show; Alison Sharman, director of factual and daytime at ITV, is talking to Joanna Lumley about programmes; and the historian Bethany Hughes is an obvious candidate to fill Schama’s shoes. Meanwhile, a concerned Janice Hadlow, the new head of BBC2, is said to be looking for a female equivalent of Peter Snow; and Bill Matthews, the co-creator of Never Mind the Buzzcocks and They Think It’s All Over, has publicly railed against the “bear pit” of “competitive, testosterone-heavy” panel shows. For Sky Arts 1’s show What the Dickens?, he is trying to reverse the gender imbalance. Yet this sounds the equivalent of fixing your lipstick when a full makeover is required. The task is to find women with the authority of David Attenborough. Otherwise, men will remain the lions of the television jungle and women the pretty adornments.

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