Cokie Roberts said she was surprised to hear women comprised less than 30 percent of guests last year on Sunday morning broadcast political talk shows like her former program, ABC's This Week. But she did not believe that disparity was a problem, stating, “there are plenty of women there.”

According to data compiled by Media Matters, the four major broadcast Sunday shows hosted men at least 72 percent of the time in 2013, with women guests making up less than 30 percent on each program. 

Those numbers haven't changed since Media Matters examined the programs in 2008. And women were even less likely to be chosen for the coveted solo newsmaker interviews, receiving no more than 15 percent of time devoted to such appearances.

“I didn't even notice it,” Roberts said during an appearance at a bookstore in New Jersey Tuesday to promote her children's book, Founding Mothers, which is about the unsung women of early American history. “I'm surprised at that because there seem to be a lot more than there were when I started.”

Asked if she believes it is a problem to have such a low ratio of women guests, Roberts, who co-anchored ABC's Sunday morning political talk show from 1996-2002 and has been a regular guest in the years since, sought to defend the process the shows used.

“It seems to me that the attempt is always to have a little of this, a little of that,” she said. “Someone just has to balance whatever, whether it's a conservative slot that needs to be filled or a minority slot that needs to be filled. It's the luck of the draw how any given week goes.”

Still, she said the gender gap had not been apparent to her.

“I haven't noticed it,” she said. “I am surprised to have you even say it. It doesn't look that way to me. It is always better to have more women, but to me in thinking about the shows there are plenty of women there.”

Below are charts showing the gender diversity on the four broadcast Sunday shows, as well as similar programs on CNN and MSNBC: