Jane Root

Jane Root (born 18 May 1957) is a creative executive in the media industry, who has run major television networks on both sides of the Atlantic. As Controller of BBC Two (1999 to 2004), she was the first woman to be a channel controller for the BBC, and was later President of Discovery Networks in the United States.

Root studied Journalism at London College of Communication, before moving on to Sussex University to study International Relations. Later awarded an honorary doctorate from the university in 2002, she worked for several years as a freelance journalist, writing for publications such as Honey, The Guardian, and Cosmopolitan. She also worked as a journalist with the British Film Institute and with the Cinema of Women film collective.

Moving into television production, Root worked as a researcher and a producer on a range of projects including working with Michael Jackson (television executive) on the Channel 4 series Open The Box. Root also wrote the accompanying book Open the Box: About Television (1986) as well as the accompanying book to the series Pictures of Women titled Pictures of Women: Sexuality (1984).

In 1987, Root co-founded and was Joint Managing Director of independent production company Wall to Wall. She helped to launch The Media Show, a defining program from the early years of Channel 4. During her tenure, alongside business partner Alex Graham, she helped nurture Wall to Wall from being a start-up to becoming 'one of the leading factual programme-makers in the business', best known in the United States for Texas Ranger House on PBS. The company was recently sold to Shed Media.

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