SH0CKING: Former Loose Women presenter Sherrie Hewson makes BLUNT STATEMENT to Bosses as they do Too Few Shows with Older People

Sherrie Hewson insists television executives must create more programmes featuring older individuals.

The former Loose Women presenter, 75, reckons mature viewers are being dismissed as “coffin dodgers” whilst broadcasters remain fixated on “pursuing youth and abandoning the elderly”.

A fresh study titled The Upper Third, commissioned by Freeview channel Great! TV, reveals over a quarter of audiences feel overlooked by contemporary television producers, despite consuming more content than any other demographic.

The Great!, network – encompassing Great! TV, Great! Action, Great! Mystery, and Great! Romance – is relaunching specifically for those audiences who feel abandoned by mainstream television, focusing on beloved and timeless, premium-quality series and films. reports the Mirror.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 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 presently portraying Martha Blake in Channel 4 soap Hollyoaks, the mother of serial killer Jeremy Blake (Jeremy Sheffield).

She is also recognised for portraying Maureen Holdsworth in Coronation Street, Lesley Meredith in Emmerdale, Joyce Temple-Savage in Benidorm and for her time as a Loose Women panellist.