The average age of BBC2’s audience topped 60 last year – a year older than BBC1 – up from 58 three years earlier.

Shillinglaw, the BBC’s former science and natural history chief, said there was a ‘maturity of world view’ among its viewers but said the channel was ‘young at heart’.

‘I don’t think in terms of actual age, I think in terms of a mindset,’ she told a Bafta event in London on Monday.

‘If you are in your 50s or 60s you grew up with punk. You don’t have an automatically staid view of the world.’

In other words, never mind the demographics, here’s BBC2.