Amanda Ross (television executive)
British television executive / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Amanda Ross is co-founder and CEO of Cactus TV,[1] a production company she founded with her husband Simon Ross in 1994. Cactus specialises in broad-based entertainment, features and chat shows, making programmes for many major UK broadcasters, including the BBC, ITV, UKTV and Channel 4.[2] In a recent Broadcast Independent Survey 2023, Cactus was ranked as the fourth biggest supplier to the BBC[3] and the fifth biggest supplier to ITV[4] by hours.
During a long and varied production career, Ross has worked with a wide range of Hollywood stars and famous figures as diverse as Madonna and Bill and Hillary Clinton.[5] Programmes include Saturday Kitchen, Between the Covers, Garraway's Good Stuff, Breakfast Shows with Big Zuu, Katie Piper and Vick Hope, Martin & Roman's Weekend Best!, Zoe Ball on Saturday/Sunday, Modern Wheels or Classic Steals, The Specsavers National Book Awards, John Torode's Malaysian Adventure, Kitchen Garden Live with the Hairy Bikers, Weekend, A Taste of Britain, Drop Down Menu, Fern, Christmas Kitchen, Spring Kitchen, The Hairy Bikers' Food Tour of Britain, Madhur Jaffrey's Curry Nation, Richard & Judy, three Rachel Allen cookery series, The Galaxy National Book Awards, and the ITV3 Crime Thriller Season and Awards.[2]
Ross also created and produced a number of major book-based campaigns on TV, including Richard & Judy's Book Club (and associated Summer Read),[6] the televising of The Galaxy National Book Awards[7] and The Crime Thriller Awards,[8] The Specsavers TV Book Club,[9] and in 2018 The Zoe Ball Book Club.[10] Ross oversees all of Cactus's book and writing initiatives, and in 2007 her book choices accounted for more than 26 per cent of all books sold in the UK.[6]
In 2013, Ross opened an award-winning cookery school[11] with Michel Roux Jr. Described as "a destination for keen cooks and amateur chefs seeking insight, inspiration and instruction from a host of culinary luminaries",[11] the school ran for five years and won Food & Travel : Cookery School of the Year Award in 2016.[12]