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Victor van Amerongen Victor van Amerongen is Chairman and Creative Director of Space City, the UK's largest producer of TV commercials (1).

Early Life

Victor Ian van Amerongen was born on 12th March 1955, the only child of Carel van Amerongen and Alida van Amerongen (nee Knuyt), who had emigrated to the UK from Holland in 1948. His father worked as a technical translator, writing and adapting several best-selling books, including The Way Things Work (Simon & Schuster, 1967). (2)

He read theoretical physics at Magdalen College, Oxford. He was President of the Oxford Union in Trinity term 1975 (3).

Radio & TV Career

He joined the BBC World Service as a Studio Manager in 1975 (4). After a brief period as a studio director in BBC Television News, he became a producer for BBC Current Affairs, then based in Lime Grove Studios, working on The Money Programme and Newsnight, among other programmes.

While working there he developed a sideline as a composer, writing the signature tunes for Watchdog and Nationwide (5) among others.

In 1986 he joined Independent Television News as a journalist on ITN World News, the UK's first satellite news service.

Space City

He founded Space City Productions in January 1992 with the aim of making low-budget TV commercials. The company soon became a specialist in direct-response advertising (DRTV). (6)

Since 2000 Space City has consistently topped the Televisual magazine poll for making more TV commercials than any other UK company (1).

The company has created and produced TV commercials for the AA, Concern Worldwide, Ecover, eSure, Experian, Gocompare.com, Groupon, Halifax, National Accident Helpline, Optical Express, Mencap, Moneysupermarket, Nestle, Primula, Prudential, Ryvita, Sightsavers, Sudocrem, Superdrug, Typhoo Tea, and uSwitch.com. (7)

Space City made the first-ever TV commercial for a price comparison website, Confused.com in 2002. It also created the musical jingle and several different TV commercials for Moonpig.com, the greetings cards company which attributed much of its success to its TV advertising (8), and which was sold in 2011 for £120m (9).

Personal Life

Victor van Amerongen married the composer Amanda Alexander in 1979. Their only son, Alexander, died in 1993 from acute myeloid leukemia at the age of 7. They have three daughters, Amii (who has appeared on Channel 4's Come Dine With Me (10 and 11)), Lucy (who wrote a best-selling book, "The A-Z of Teen Talk" (12 and 13)). and Rosie. They live in London and Gloucestershire.

TV and Radio Appearances

He has frequently been interviewed on news programmes about matters relating to TV advertising. In 2004 he appeared in the Sky 1 series The 1970s Office (14). In 2012 he was a member of Micky Flanagan's team on Channel 4's The Mad Bad Ad Show (15).

1) http://www.televisual.com/read-reports-surveys/11/96/Awards-commissions-directors-top-10s.html

2) http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_way_things_work.html?id=IgolNQAACAAJ&redir_esc=y

3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidents_of_the_Oxford_Union

4) http://www.oldsms.co.uk/main.php?action=people&subaction=list&alphabet=V

5) http://apps.prsformusic.com/WACD/WorksSearch.aspx

6) http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/business/article218781.ece

7) http://www.spacecity.co.uk/clients.html

8) http://2founders.com/2011/12/01/moonpig/

9) http://www.internetretailing.net/2011/07/photobox-buys-moonpig-com-for-120m/

10) http://www.channel4.com/4food/on-tv/come-dine-with-me/come-dine-with-me-extras/series-5/west-london/amii-van-amerongen-s-menu

11) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_Dine_with_Me

12) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Teen-Talk-Lucy-van-Amerongen/dp/184161291X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1329394437&sr=8-2

13) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1574442/Bestselling-book-reveals-secrets-of-teen-slang.html

14) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0490705/

15) http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-mad-bad-ad-show/episode-guide/series-1/episode-2