Ant and Dec SCRAP controversial Saturday Night Takeaway competition after viewer backlash
ANT and Dec have scrapped Saturday Night Takeaway’s Place on the Plane in a huge shake up of the show ahead of its final series.
It comes after ITV came under fire for flying an empty passenger jet across the Atlantic twice in April as part of the segment.
Ant, 47, and Dec, 48, will instead put on a series of huge prizes for fans in what will be the final series of the show after they chose to rest it after 20 years.
A source said: “ITV decided alongside Ant and Dec that Place on the Plane wouldn’t be a feature on this series after the PR disaster during the last show.
“They were roasted for flying an empty jet almost 9,000miles with no one on board.
“No one working on Saturday Night Takeaway wants anything to overshadow what is gearing up to be their most spectacular show yet so the segment has been binned.”
An ITV spokesperson told The Sun: “Ant and Dec are planning to make the 20th series of Saturday Night Takeaway their most spectacular ever.
“As such there will be numerous surprises, alongside the biggest viewer holiday give away in Takeaway history.
“The 2024 series will be a brilliant celebration of 20 amazing years on screen.”
The Sun told in April how ITV were branded “hypocrites” for flying the Airbus 350 completely empty twice.
Across the four flights it made, two with fans on board, the jet would have burned 264,000 litres of fuel and spewed out 700,000kgs of Carbon Dioxide.
The gaffe came after ITV said they wanted to be zero waste by 2030 and have net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
At the time green campaigners were furious at the stunt, with Angela Terry telling us: “In a climate crisis, it’s shocking the show can’t offer amazing experiences to prize winners that don’t involve two empty trans-Atlantic flights.”
An ITV insider added: “Saturday Night Takeaway are lining up the biggest and best prizes ever to give away to fans. It is going to be spectacular.”
The Sun told in May how Ant and Dec were stepping down from the show after two decades.
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.”
Dec, 47, added: “We still have a momentous 20th series to look forward to first so we will do our best to go out with a bang.”
The popular Geordie duo will film a full-length series, as normal, in 2024 before stepping back to pursue other projects.
Their £30million golden handcuffs deal with ITV will continue until at least 2025, and they will continue to host I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here!, Britain’s Got Talent and Limitless Win, all of which air across ITV1 and ITVX.