The BBC's Torrin Douglas: "The media are missing a particularly lucrative market"

Despite the success of sitcoms such as the BBC's One Foot In The Grave, portraying the curmudgeonly Victor Meldrew as he rages against old age, and Waiting For God, set in a retirement home, the study suggests pensioners are being airbrushed from our screens.

Just 7% of the television population - including both fictional and factual programmes - are over 60, although they make up 21% of the "real world."

And while the number of elderly people is increasing, their share of the small-screen cast has fallen in the last year.

Discrimination

The survey, for the charity Age Concern, found that the proportion of people aged over 60 appearing on TV fell from 10% in 1998 to 7% this year.

Just 8% of people who appear on factual programmes are aged over 60, while in fictional productions they count for a mere 6% of the cast.

Age Concern says television companies are discriminating against elderly people and missing out on a potentially lucrative market.

Older people watch 37 hours of television a week on average - 12 hours more than younger adults.

The number of people over pensionable age is expected to rise from 10.7 million in 1996 to 11.8 million in 2010.

Women on television fare even worse than men when they start collecting their pensions, the research found.

Older men outnumber older women by 70% to 30%, even though 57% of the UK population are female and 43% are male.

People aged 25 to 44 make up 61% of the television world - while in reality they account for just for 30% of the population.

'Ignore at peril'

Sally Greengross, director general of Age Concern, said: "Programme makers ignore elderly people at their peril.

"They are discriminating against an ever-growing section of the population by failing to accurately reflect the true make-up of society today and tomorrow."

She added: "By continuing to under-represent older people on TV, they are also overlooking the power of older people as potential consumers.

"We hope this research will act as a wake-up call to all broadcasters to do more to ensure older people are properly represented on television.

"Television companies need to make a firm commitment to keep older people in the picture."

BBC response

A spokeswoman for the BBC said: "We are pleased that BBC came out best of all broadcasters, but it is important to see the report in context.

"If the whole of the BBC's output was studied, including radio and regional radio, we think a much more representative picture would emerge."

She added: "We need to study the report before giving a detailed response."

The survey of one week's prime-time television analysed the five terrestrial channels and Sky One.

The different channels percentage of TV population over 60 were as follows: