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]
Ross was named No 1 in The Observer newspaper's List of the 50 most powerful people in publishing. [13] She won a British Book Trade Award for inspiring wider reading in 2006, [14] and The Bookseller Award for expanding the market in 2006 and 2007, and an Outstanding Achievement Award in 2009. She received an RTS Educational Television Award in 2007 for her role in the Channel 4 "Lost for Words Season", which focused on children's literacy. She was voted in the top five of London's "Literary Life" in the Evening Standard 's "1000 Most Influential People 2008". [15]
She has a BA (Hons) degree in Drama from Birmingham University. She is also a Trustee of the children's charity Kidscape and on the UK Advisory Board for the charity Room to Read, an Ambassador for Wellbeing of Women, and also for the National Literacy Trust. [16]
Nigella Lucy Lawson is an English food writer and television cook.
Richard and Judy is the name informally given to Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan, a British married couple who are both television presenters and columnists. They presented the daytime television programme This Morning from 1988 until 2001, and then hosted the daily chat show Richard & Judy from 2001 until 2009.
Judith Adele Finnigan is an English television presenter and writer. She co-presented ITV's This Morning and the Channel 4 chat show, Richard & Judy (2001–2008) alongside her husband Richard Madeley. Her debut novel Eloise, published in 2012, was a Sunday Times bestseller. Her second novel, I Do Not Sleep, was published in 2015.
Richard Holt Madeley is an English television presenter and writer. Alongside his wife Judy Finnigan, he presented ITV's This Morning (1988–2001) and the Channel 4 chat show Richard & Judy (2001–2008). Madeley's solo projects include the series Fortune: Million Pound Giveaway (2007) and covering for The Chris Evans Breakfast Show on BBC Radio 2. He was the main relief presenter of Channel 5's The Wright Stuff (2012–2017), and since 2017, he has been one of three main relief presenters of ITV breakfast show Good Morning Britain.
Christopher Richard Stein, is an English celebrity chef, restaurateur, writer and television presenter. Along with business partner Jill Stein, he runs the Stein hotel and restaurant business in the UK. The business has a number of renowned restaurants, shops and hotels in Padstow along with other restaurants in Marlborough, Winchester and Barnes. He is also the head chef and a co-owner of the "Rick Stein at Bannisters" restaurants in Mollymook and Port Stephens in Australia, with his second wife, Sarah. He writes cookery books and has presented numerous cookery series for the BBC.
Hilda Elsie Marguerite Patten,, was a British home economist, food writer and broadcaster. She was one of the earliest celebrity chefs who became known during World War II thanks to her programme on BBC Radio, where she shared recipes that could work within the limits imposed by war rationing. After the war, she was responsible for popularising the use of pressure cookers and her 170 published books have sold over 17 million copies.
Nigel Slater is an English food writer, journalist and broadcaster. He has written a column for The Observer Magazine for over a decade and is the principal writer for the Observer Food Monthly supplement. Prior to this, Slater was a food writer for Marie Claire for five years.
James Martin is a British chef and television presenter, best known for his television work with the BBC and ITV.
Saturday Kitchen Live is a British cookery programme that is broadcast live on BBC One every Saturday between 10.00am and 11.30am produced by Cactus TV.
Peter May is a Scottish television screenwriter, novelist, and crime writer. He is the recipient of writing awards in Europe and America. The Blackhouse won the U.S. Barry Award for Crime Novel of the Year and the national literature award in France, the Cezam Prix Litteraire. The Lewis Man won the French daily newspaper Le Télégramme's 10,000-euro Grand Prix des Lecteurs. In 2014, Entry Island won both the Deanston's Scottish Crime Novel of the Year and the UK's ITV Crime Thriller Book Club Best Read of the Year Award. May's books have sold more than two million copies in the UK and several million internationally.
Ching-He Huang (Chinese: 黃瀞億; pinyin: Huáng Jìngyì; Wade–Giles: Huang2 Ching4-i4;, often known in English-language merely as Ching, is a Taiwanese-born British food writer and TV chef. She has appeared in a variety of television cooking programmes, and is the author of nine best-selling cookbooks. Ching is recognized as a foodie entrepreneur, having created her own food businesses. She has become known for Chinese cookery internationally through her TV programmes, books, noodle range, tableware range, and involvement in many campaigns and causes.
Peter J. James is a British writer of crime. He was born in Brighton, the son of Cornelia James, the former glovemaker to Queen Elizabeth II.
Anne Lucinda Hartley Rice, known professionally as Anneka Rice, is a Welsh-born television and radio presenter, journalist and painter.
The Crime Thriller Awards is a British awards ceremony dedicated to crime thriller fiction. The inaugural event was held on 3 October 2008 at the Grosvenor Hotel, hosted by comedian and Jonathan Creek actor Alan Davies. It was televised on ITV3 on 6 October, produced by Cactus TV. The ceremony was preceded by seven weeks of crime-thriller-related programming on ITV3.
Matthew Charles Tebbutt is a British chef and television food presenter best known for presenting shows such as Channel 4's Food Unwrapped and Drop Down Menu, the BBC's Saturday Kitchen and the Good Food channel's Market Kitchen. Tebbutt ran The Foxhunter in Nant-y-derry for many years with his wife, but gave it up to focus on his TV career.
Yotam Assaf Ottolenghi is an Israeli-born British chef, restaurateur, and food writer. Alongside Sami Tamimi, he is the co-owner of seven delis and restaurants in London and the author of several bestselling cookery books, including Ottolenghi: The Cookbook (2008), Plenty (2010), Jerusalem (2012) and Simple (2018).
Tim Weaver is an English writer primarily known for his crime thrillers featuring missing persons investigator David Raker.
Cally Taylor is best known for her alias C.L. Taylor, a Sunday Times bestselling crime author. As Cally Taylor she wrote romantic comedies published by Orion Publishing Group and as C.L. Taylor, she publishes psychological thrillers through HarperCollins. On 16th July 2024 she was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters from the University of Northumbria in Newcastle-on-Tyne
Nadiya Jamir Hussain is a British television chef, author and television personality. She rose to fame after winning the sixth series of BBC's The Great British Bake Off in 2015. Since winning, she has signed contracts with the BBC to host the documentary The Chronicles of Nadiya and TV cookery series Nadiya's British Food Adventure and Nadiya's Family Favourites; co-presented The Big Family Cooking Showdown; and has become a regular contributor on The One Show.
Anna Jones is a food writer, stylist, and author, based in London. In 2004, Jones joined Jamie Oliver's Fifteen apprentice programme, working for him for seven years. She then went on to become a published author, and a regular columnist for The Guardian. She is known for focusing on vegetables and vegetarian cookery. She has appeared on television for Saturday Kitchen and Living on the Veg.