Cat Lewis

Cat Lewis
Born (1965-03-23) 23 March 1965
Rajkot, India
Occupation TV Producer
Spouse(s) Mike Lewis

Cat Lewis (born 23 March 1965) is a British TV producer and director.

Family Background

Cat was born Catriona Margaret Pettigrew on 23 March 1965 in Rajkot, India and is a CEO and Television Executive Producer. Her family returned to live in England when she was 3-years-old and her school years were spent in Stockton-on-Tees, where she attended Ian Ramsay C. of E. School and Stockton Sixth Form.

Cat’s father is mountaineer Bob Pettigrew (a former President of the British Mountaineering Council) who spent seven years teaching in India so as to climb the Himalayas each summer. Her mother, Deana Addison (1935 to 2007) was Head of Religious Education at The Norton School in Stockton-on-Tees and then became a reader in the Church of England. Cat’s great grandfather Guy Pettigrew was a music hall performer who began making films during the era of silent movies in 1919. He shot, directed and performed in a film called Bunkered in Blackpool (archived in the Scottish Film Institute) and in later years ran a cinema in Liverpool.

Cat is married to TV Executive Producer Mike Lewis, who specialises in current affairs, and they have two sons – Tom Lewis (born on 23 Dec 1989) and Joe Lewis (born on 24 Dec 1993).

Current career

On 3 September 2007 Cat Lewis launched the Manchester based independent, Nine Lives.[1] She is the owner, CEO and Executive Producer of the company, which has become the biggest factual independent producer in the North West of England, creating numerous jobs for programme makers. Cat’s Joint Creative Director and acclaimed film maker Kerry Brierley. The company’s Head of Development is Asif Hasan and Mike Lewis is Head of Current Affairs. Nine Lives makes programmes for the BBC, Channel 4, Channel 5, TLC in America, The Crime and Investigation Network and The Biography Channel.[1] Nine Lives Media has won numerous industry awards for its work and its programmes usually attract a large audience.

Awards

Television Industry Roles

Cat is the representative of independents in the English Regions on the UK’s PACT Council. Cat is also on the RTS Committee in the North West and is the founder and chair of the Indie Club, which is a networking group for industry professionals holding monthly meetings where freelancers working within television attend master classes led by commissioners and other speakers.[2]

Career

Cat co-presented a children’s radio programme called Hubble Bubble on Radio Tees (now called TFM Radio) from the age of 15 to 18. In 1981 she presented the first ever Sunday morning children's programme called Sunday Sundae, which has been archived by the British Film Institute. The series was produced by Malcolm Gerrie who went on to create The Tube.

In 1983 Cat enrolled at Bristol University to read English & Drama, which included practical training in TV and Film Production. After graduating in 1986 she spent a year shooting and editing educational films before completing a Post Grad Diploma in Broadcast Journalism at the University of Central Lancashire.

In 1988 Cat won a coveted place as a BBC Production Trainee, based in the North West. After working on a range of BBC productions as a Researcher, Cat moved across to Granada as an Assistant Producer and was promoted to Series Producer at the age of just 26. She went on to work on a range of factual programmes for Granada Television including This Morning, World in Action and the first ever property makeover series – House Style.

In 1995 Cat went back on screen as a reporter for a programme about the internet presented by Tony Wilson and then she worked for three years as a BBC news reporter for North West Tonight. In the 1990s Cat also set up all Granada Television's first programme related websites, including World in Action's, which was the UK's first to run TV clips. Cat organised the first ever live internet vote on TV back in 1998 on the Stars in their Eyes’ final. In 1998, Cat began working as a documentary Producer/Director for Granada Television making films for Sky One, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. In 1999 Cat won her first two TV commissions for Channel Five and Channel 4.

In 2001 Cat left Granada Television to set up the factual division of Unique Television. By 2006, she'd created six new TV series plus a large number of one off films, building Unique Factuals annual turnover to £1.8 million and she’d learnt what she needed to know to set up and run her own independent production company.

References

  1. 1 2 Cat Lewis
  2. ↑ www.indieclub.tv
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