Although Ant had built some television experience with a brief stint on the children's classic, Why Don't You?, Declan was the first of the duo to acquire his place on the BBC children's drama series Byker Grove, playing Duncan. A year later (in 1990) Ant joined the cast playing PJ (Peter Jenkins). Their friendship began when their storylines collided together creating a friendship offscreen as well as on.

After their music career, the duo gained their own sketch comedy show (The Ant & Dec Show) on Children's BBC in 1995, as well as an early evening show on Channel 4 (Ant & Dec Unzipped) in 1997.

After presenting various other BBC programmes such as Friends Like These, the BBC believed the duo had run their course and decided to let them go. Rivals ITV quickly signed the pair on in 1998.

They enjoyed success fronting ITV1's Saturday morning children's programmes SMTV Live and CD:UK alongside Cat Deeley.

SMTV Live was voted number 27 in the 100 Greatest Children's Television Shows that aired on Channel 4.

They subsequently moved to Saturday evening to present Pop Idol, PokerFace and Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway. Their highest audience figures to date were obtained whilst presenting I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! in February 2004. On June 9, 2007, the duo began hosting ITV's new show, Britain's Got Talent, featuring Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden and Piers Morgan.

Declan broke his arm, thumb and gained a concussion whilst doing a stunt for his show Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway in 2005. In the section called Ant vs Dec, the incident involved learning how to ride a motorbike and jump through a ring of fire. Not pulling enough on the throttle caused the bike to topple over and send Declan flying falling on his head. The accident caused the pair to miss Comic Relief two days after the accident.

Taken from Wikipedia.