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Entertainment

22nd Mar 2018

ITV has made the official decision on Ant’s Saturday Night Takeaway replacement

James Dawson

We now know.

Following a lot of speculation, we now know exactly what will go on as Declan Donnelly presents Saturday Night Takeaway for the first time without Ant McPartlin.

The news comes after it was confirmed on Wednesday that the show would go ahead despite Ant McPartlin being unavailable to appear.

Despite speculation that Stephen Mulhern or Scarlett Moffatt would replace Ant, The Sun reports that ITV says Dec will, in fact, front the show alone.

Stephen and Scarlett will continue as co-hosts for the show’s smaller segments, with Stephen Merchant as the weekly Star Guest Announcer.

The final episode of the series will be filmed in Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida.

It comes after an ITV spokesman said yesterday: “We can confirm that Saturday Night Takeaway, presented by Declan Donnelly, will return to ITV on March 31, and the series finale will be taking place at Universal Orlando Resort in Florida a week later.”

Dec posted a statement today on Ant an Dec’s Twitter page saying: “Whilst I never thought I’d be in this position, after much discussion and careful consideration we’ve decided that the remaining two shows of this series of Saturday Night Takeaway will go ahead.

“We made a promise to take hundreds of deserving winners to Florida to watch the series finale, and we will honour that.

“Everyone at ITV and the Takeaway team feels we owe it to the audience to complete the series.

“Dec x.”