Ant & Dec issue apology to viewers

Ant McPartlin and Dec Donnelly have issued an apology to viewers over phone line irregularities on their shows.

The Deloitte report, which was released on Thursday, found that there had been "serious editorial issues" in the 2005 and 2006 seasons of Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, and the 2005 run of Ant and Dec's Gameshow Marathon.


"It is important to us that people understand that none of the shows highlighted in the findings of the ITV's independent review were made by our production company, Gallowgate, and that there was no financial benefit to us from the phone lines within those shows," the pair explained in a statement.

Although the TV hosts are credited as executive producers of Saturday Night Takeaway, they have insisted that they had no knowledge of the problems.

"Our roles as executive producers on Saturday Night Takeaway are purely creative ones," they explained. "We are not involved in running the phone lines, the logistics of the competitions or selecting winners.

"We are deeply upset about what the review uncovered. However, we welcome the full disclosure of these problems, not least because we can be sure that our viewers have the opportunity to get their money back. The way our viewers and fans have been treated simply isn't acceptable and we are truly sorry."

Their statement continued: "We have proposed to ITV that as a gesture of goodwill, any profits from the competition entries on the next series of Takeaway should all be donated to charity, and we are delighted to say that ITV has readily agreed."

Source: Digitalspy.co.uk