EXCLUSIVE: Loose Women legend Sherrie Hewson has hit out at TV bosses claiming they are “chasing the young and forgetting the old” by commissioning the likes of Love Island and Naked Attraction
Sherrie Hewson reckons TV chiefs should be creating more programmes featuring older characters.
The former Loose Women presenter, aged 75, believes mature viewers are being treated like “coffin dodgers” whilst broadcasters are “chasing the young and forgetting the old”.
A fresh study titled The Upper Third, commissioned by Freeview channel Great!
TV, reveals that over a quarter of viewers feel overlooked by today’s programme makers, despite tuning in more than any other demographic.
The Great!, reports the Mirror. network – encompassing Great! TV, Great! Action, Great! Mystery, and Great! Romance – is relaunching specifically for audiences who feel abandoned by mainstream television, focusing on beloved and classic, top-quality TV series and films.
Discussing the initiative, Sherrie commented: “This is a brilliant campaign and long overdue. If you lived in my world, you’d know this is exactly what people want.
“Today’s TV so often chases the young and forgets the rest but for many of us, the joy of great television has always been simple – you just watch a show and you laugh, or you don’t. Funny is funny.
“Look at the adverts on television, you never see older people in adverts unless they’re in a funeral parlour or a cremation or life insurance. It’s like we’re being treated like coffin dodgers or something.”
She went on: “I did the remake of Are You Being Served? and I played Mrs Slocombe and we got something like eight million viewers for that one episode and every character in that is older. Everybody loved it.
“You don’t have to remake these shows but just make the older shows more accessible so people can see them.”
Sherrie believes entertainment programmes such as Love Island Naked Attraction are being given too much precedence over the dramas and sitcoms she grew up adoring.
She added: “Somebody’s paid to have these commissioned and I don’t get it. Maybe it’s because I’m the age I am but my daughter who’s 40 thinks its awful to so it’s not just me.”
Sherrie is currently portraying Martha Blake in Channel 4 soap Hollyoaks, the mother of serial killer Jeremy Blake (Jeremy Sheffield).
She is also recognised for playing Maureen Holdsworth in Coronation Street, Lesley Meredith in Emmerdale, Joyce Temple-Savage in Benidorm and for her time as a Loose Women panellist.
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