SHAMELESS creator Paul Abbott says he is shocked at the way women are treated in television.

The award-winning Manchester-based writer said: "It's perceived as being such a glamorous industry.

 "But watch the way apprentices, junior writers or actors are treated ... the misanthropy," he told today's Radio Times.

 "And working with women in this industry - I've never seen misogyny like it. And women are savage to women. It shocks me."

He added: "The industry is getting boring. If we don't get people through with bigger, newer ideas, it's going to get worse.

"A lot of name writers in this country just write whatever they want. And you look and think, 'That's a tenth (as good as) what you wrote 20 years ago.' That's the worst thing I can think of happening to me."

A sixth series of Wythenshawe-filmed Shameless begins on Channel 4 next Tuesday and includes some darker storylines. "I wasn't happy with the last series," he revealed. "Sometimes it can rest on its laurels - and it doesn't need to do that."

Cracker, State of Play, Clocking Off and former Coronation Street writer Paul also repeated comparisons he has made before between Shameless and the royal family.

"The working classes will always give you a better market for storylines. You've got the built-in conflict of a lack of access to education and revenue.

"That said, I could make the royal family look like Shameless. It really isn't far off. There are Frank Gallaghers really elegantly camouflaged in half of sub-aristocratic Britain."

Burnley-born Paul has been in talks to send Frank to America, in a re-make of the comedy drama for US TV. ER and The West Wing writer and producer John Wells is developing a new version with cable network HBO to turn Frank into a Yank.

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