Ant and Dec's 700 per cent pay rise

They began as schoolboy actors on a children's soap and then had a much-mocked spin-off teen pop career: now Ant and Dec are about to pick up the biggest pay cheque in British television history.

The presenters, among the most in demand on the air, are in negotiations to renew their deal with ITV for an estimated £40m - eight times higher than their current contract.

Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly, who front shows such as Saturday Night Takeaway and I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, follow in the footsteps of TV's top earners, Jonathan Ross and Simon Cowell, who have both signed eight-figure deals.

The pay deal is the latest decisive move at Michael Grade's newly revitalised ITV, which pounced on the rights to the FA Cup nine days ago by teaming up with Setanta, snatching them from under the noses of the BBC and Sky.

Now ITV is to secure the services of their best-loved presenters for the next three years. The pair, both 31, have been named the best entertainment presenters for six years running at the National Television Awards.

The pair have had numerous ups and downs, ricocheting between channels until they found their most enduring home at ITV. In the late 1990s, after leaving the Newcastle-based series Byker Grove, they had short chart career before landing shows for children on BBC and Channel 4. But the content of both was deemed to be too adult for their audience. In particular, a BBC show in which young contestants had all their hair shaved off landed the pair in hot water.

They hit gold, however, when they scooped the Saturday morning show SM:TV Live for ITV, the success of which led to Saturday night shows and custody of their hugely successful I'm a Celebrity programmes.

On top of their presenting careers, they own their own production company, Gallowgate, and have developed programmes such as a celebrity golf tournament. They have also filmed a pilot for US television called Wanna Bet.

An ITV spokeswoman said: "We are currently in discussions with Ant and Dec. Obviously this is a very important deal for ITV."

Their new earnings will match those ofCowell, the Pop Idol guru, who has a £20m contract with ITV over three years, and Ross, whose BBC deal is said to be worth £18m. Ant and Dec are to front Cowell's latest UK show, Britain's Got Talent, going out from June.

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