So earlier we reported below, you can scroll down to read Dara's clarification.

Well, Dara O'Briain certainly knows how to poke the beast. He has had some harsh words for BBC after their decision to ban all-male lineups for comedy panel shows. He says that all it will lead to is viewers looking at a female guest as a 'token woman'.

In an interview with RadioTimes, the Mock the Week host said: "A certain number of women want to go into comedy, and they should be cherished and nurtured, but you're not going to shift the fact that loads more men want to do it."

His comments came in light of the BBC director of television Danny Cohen's stating that "we're not going to have any more panel shows with no women on them". O'Briain feels that instead of taking on the amount of women in comedy shows, we should be more focused on tackling gender imbalances in other areas, such as the amount of women in computer coding.

The fact is, there currently are more males than females on these panel shows, however, satirical writer and broadcaster Caitlin Moran has said in the past that she refuses to go on these shows, as she doesn't want to be considered the 'token woman'. Back in 2012, Moran said: "I think that's a boys' game that works for boys. It's not like they built it to screw women over, it's just that boys built it, so they made it to work for boys."

Whereas on the other side of the coin, Orla O'Connor from the National Women's Council of Ireland told the Irish Independent: "I think it's a positive step by the BBC. I think one of things that The National Women's Council in Ireland has been raising in Ireland is to have more women on radio and TV and absolutely moving away from having all-male panels."

There is no doubt that males are perhaps over represented on comedy panel shows, and while this ban will amend this, it's fair to say though, that nobody wants to be the 'token' anything - ever.

*Story Update:  Dara has since taken to Twitter to clarfiy what he said*