Ant and Dec after winning the People's Choice Award at the British Comedy Awards last year. Photograph: Ian West/PA
It's a golden handcuffs deal, apparently. Double act Ant and Dec have secured their place as TV's top Material Boys, alongside Jonathan Ross (£18m) and Simon Cowell (£20m), with a contract with ITV believed to be worth £30m over two-and-a-half years.
It's an incredibly, disgustingly huge amount of money. But their light'n'bright, cheeky chappy comedy routine has apparently worked wonders on the millions of viewers they have attracted to the likes of I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here, and this is their reward.
So, do they deserve it? Or more to the point, does anyone on telly deserve such big sums for doing their day job, however glamorous and popular it might be?
