BBC children's TV hosts 'are either gay or childless... and they don't like kids', claims children's presenter

Kirsten O'Brien, a stalwart of the corporation's programmes for youngsters, made the claim during a stand-up show at the Edinburgh festival.

And she added: "Still, at least we're better than Palestinian children's TV, which gets kids to sing songs about AK-47 rifles."

Miss O'Brien, 35, has been performing Confessions Of A Children's TV Presenter at the festival and is due to return to filming at the BBC in two weeks' time.

Born in Middlesbrough, she now lives in North London with her boyfriend. The couple have no children.

She first worked on CBBC in the Nineties as a general presenter and has gone on to host SMart, SMarteenies, Totally Doctor Who and BBC 7's Little Toe Radio Show.

Last night, the corporation insisted that her remarks about her colleagues had been made in jest.

A spokesman said: "Kirsten's joke is a throwaway line and is clearly meant to be ironic.

"The audience is totally different at the festival because it is for adults.

"We wouldn't check her script if she was doing something separate from the BBC.

"She is due back on air in the autumn and this wouldn't affect that."

However, Miss O'Brien's comment could not have come at a worse time for the corporation.

It is the latest in a series of gaffes by the makers and presenters of BBC children's shows.

Only last week, Blue Peter host Konnie Huq embarrassed her bosses when it emerged that she had attended an event organised by London mayor Ken Livingstone.

Her presence provoked accusations that she was breaking the corporation's rules on political impartiality.

The BBC's deputy director-general Mark Byford said: "It was felt that the BBC and the programme should not be linked with anything that might be construed as campaigning."

Miss Huq, 31, has already resigned from Blue Peter in the wake of the telephone quiz scandal which hit the show and is due to leave next spring after ten years on the show.

The series was found to have used a studio guest to pose as a competition winner in a programme aired in November.

Some 14,000 children had taken part with no chance of winning.

Last month, BBC charity shows Comic Relief, Children In Need and Sport Relief were also discovered to have faked competition winners.

Blue Peter's reputation was previously hit in 1998 when Huq's then boyfriend and co-presenter Richard Bacon admitted taking cocaine after being exposed by a newspaper.

Bacon became the first presenter to be fired in the aftermath of a drugs scandal.

The BBC faced further embarrassment this year when it was forced to issue an apology for showing manipulated footage of the Queen in a documentary trailer.

It implied that she had stormed out of a sitting with photographer Annie Leibovitz, when in fact the images of her had been taken as she walked towards the photographer's studio.