Ant & Dec, the primetime kings of British entertainment TV, will take over the prestigious hosting duties of The BRIT Awards with MasterCard next year. The BRITs will take place Wednesday 25th February at The O2 and will be broadcast live on ITV.
The BAFTA award winning duo will return once again to take the helm of the biggest night in the UK music calendar having hosted in 2001, and will bring their popular humour and presenting prowess to proceedings, to ensure a truly memorable occasion.
Ant & Dec said, ‘We’re really excited to be hosting the BRITs again next year, it is undoubtedly the biggest night in the British music calendar. We’re especially excited now we’re No.1 recording artists ourselves. We’ll be offering our advice to the fledgling pop stars backstage as to how to have a No.1 hit, as long as they’re prepared to wait 19 years for their records to top the chart like ours did!’
Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly have had an incredible career in TV broadcasting: starting off in BBC’s children’s drama Byker Grove they went on to make TV shows such as the BAFTA-award dinning Ant & Dec show which ran on BBC1 for two series, followed by a move to Channel 4 to make Ant & Dec Unzipped. Through their own production company, the duo launched SM:TV and CD:UK in 1998, and by 2000 had signed an exclusive contract with ITV1 which saw them present Pop Idol.
In 2002, Ant & Dec were back on Saturday night TV with the launch of a new prime time show, Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, before travelling all the way across the globe to host I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here which they continue to win awards for now. In 2007, the pair launched another entertainment giant with ITV1, Britain’s Got Talent. Ant & Dec have won a staggering number of awards throughout their career – including 26 National Television Awards, six British Comedy Awards and a BAFTA, and have risen through the ranks of British TV broadcasting to become two of the country’s true national treasures.
The pair have also enjoyed an exciting music career which produced fourteen Top 20 hits including the pop smash Let’s Get Ready To Rhumble (re-released in 2013 to go straight to the top of the charts), three multi-platinum albums, as well as re-writing and recording the official World Cup anthem for the England football team in 2002.
BRITs Chairman Max Lousada said: “Ant & Dec are two of the most popular TV broadcasters this country has ever produced and it’s a real honour to have them take centre stage once again to host the BRITs. It’s great that these two pillars of British TV will be part of a night about celebrating icons in British music.”
The designer of the BRITs statue was recently unveiled as Tracey Emin, continuing the impressive lineage of British artists who have re-worked the famous Award with their own unique creative spin. Further campaign announcements will be made in the coming months including details for the second ever BRITs Week. The 2014 (and first ever) BRITs Week saw a host of musical events take place in the week running up to the main Awards date itself.
