Why is Saturday Night Takeaway ending? Ant & Dec's decision explained
The time has sadly come...
It's a moment no one wanted to think about, but the time has come for Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway to air its final episode, for now at least.
ITV's Saturday night extravaganza returned with a bang earlier this year, with all new segments and plenty of surprise moments.
Tonight's episode (Saturday 13th April), will be Ant & Dec's biggest show and audience ever as they bow out in style.
In truly sensational fashion, Girls Aloud will be the star guest announcers, the final part of Get Out of Me Ear: The Revenge will be shown, as well as a super-sized singalong with S Club, Tony Hadley and Kaiser Chiefs.
That and many more will be entertaining audiences for two hours tonight, but is this the end? Here's everything you need to know.
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Why is Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway ending?
Ahead of this year's 20th season, it was announced that the presenting duo would be taking a break and that it would return in the future.
In a video shared to social media confirming the news, Ant said: "We love making Saturday Night Takeaway, but reaching the milestone of 20 series seemed like the perfect time to pause for a little while and catch our breath."
Filming the series is incredibly busy for the two, with Dec telling Heart Radio that they finish a season in April and begin filming for new episodes in June.
In an interview with The Independent, Dec admitted 20 seasons felt "like a natural point to pause".
He told the publication: "We don't want to say we'll never do it again. But we've both got families now. Our lives have changed dramatically. We want to step off the hamster wheel, catch our breath and decide what's next."
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"I feel like it's a nice time to turn the page, and it will give us time to reflect," Ant told FAULT Magazine.
"You can't think of a different version of Saturday Night Takeaway while Saturday Night Takeaway is on air. You need to be away from it."
Dec added: "I think what happened when we took a break last time [was] we started to miss it. We started coming up with lots of ideas and going, 'Oh, that would be amazing.' We want to give ourselves that same opportunity this time to miss the show and just see how we feel and where that takes us."
Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway is available to watch on ITVX.
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