There was something genuinely ritual about it. Every Saturday morning, millions of kids across Britain settled in front of the television before their parents had properly woken up, watching a rotating cast of impossibly enthusiastic presenters bounce around studio sets that looked like they’d been designed by someone who ate too many Skittles. The shows were loud, the games were chaotic, and the hosts became fixtures of childhood in a way that felt permanent at the time.
Those presenters, some of them barely adults themselves, were launching careers from those studios without most people realising it. While some went on to become huge household names, not everyone could be an Ant or a Dec, with some fading into complete obscurity. The full range of outcomes is, when you lay it all out, quite something.
Ant & Dec: From Wonkey Donkey to Television Royalty
ITV signed the duo in August 1998, and within weeks they were assigned to present ITV1’s Saturday morning programmes SMTV Live and CD:UK, alongside Cat Deeley. The duo presented the shows with Deeley for three years, becoming the most popular ITV Saturday morning show. At the height of its popularity, SM:TV Live regularly attracted 2.5 million viewers.
The show went into an indefinite hiatus after the twentieth series in 2024, due to the presenters wanting to spend more time with their families. They remain one of the most decorated presenting partnerships in British television history. Ant and Dec won Best Presenter at the 2024 National Television Awards, making it 23 years in a row, though their run of wins came to an end in 2025 when Gary Lineker took home the award. Their game show Limitless Win returned in January 2025 for series four, with bosses confirming it has been renewed for two more series in 2026 and 2027.
Cat Deeley: BAFTA Winner, US Star, and the Return Home
Deeley began her television career as a co-presenter of the ITV children’s show SMTV Live, for which she won a BAFTA Children’s Award, and its spin-off chart show CD:UK. Following the final series of Stars in Their Eyes in 2006, Deeley began hosting the reality competition show So You Think You Can Dance in the United States, for which she has been nominated five times for a Primetime Emmy.
In March 2024, Deeley was appointed as the permanent co-host of ITV’s This Morning alongside Ben Shephard, stepping in after the departures of Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield. The duo debuted on 11 March 2024, hosting Monday to Thursday episodes, with their chemistry drawing praise for revitalising the show’s dynamic. Few careers have traced quite such an arc, from a Brummie teenager with wild hair on a Saturday morning show to one of ITV’s most recognised daytime faces.
Zoe Ball: The First Lady of the Breakfast Show
Ball presented the children’s show Live & Kicking, alongside Jamie Theakston, from 1996 to 1999. According to the BBC, the show’s popularity was at its peak during the 1996/1997 series when the show regularly had 2.5 million viewers. Her energy on that Saturday morning sofa translated directly into a broadcasting career that kept on growing long after the show ended.
Zoe was the first woman to present the Breakfast Show on both BBC Radio 1 and the Radio 2 Breakfast Show. In 2018, Ball was announced as the new host of The Radio 2 Breakfast Show and took over from Chris Evans in January 2019, before stepping down from the programme in December 2024. In May 2026, Ball was the subject of the BBC genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are?, in which she appeared alongside her father.
Jamie Theakston: Heart Breakfast and a Very Personal Battle
He co-presented the Saturday morning BBC One children’s show Live & Kicking alongside Zoe Ball between 1996 and 1999, and hosted episodes of the music programme Top of the Pops between 1998 and 2003. After stepping away from children’s television, Theakston quietly built one of the most enduring careers in British radio. He co-hosts the national breakfast show with Amanda Holden on Heart Radio.
In September 2024, Theakston announced that he had been diagnosed with stage I laryngeal cancer, but said that the prognosis was “very positive.” He finished treatment in January 2025, and has since made a full recovery. It was a moment that brought a wave of public goodwill from fans who had grown up watching him on Saturday mornings, and a reminder of how much those early screen memories stay with people.
Konnie Huq: Blue Peter’s Longest-Serving Female Presenter
She became the longest-serving female presenter of the British children’s television programme Blue Peter, presenting it from 1997 to 2008. That is more than a decade on a show already famous for demanding total commitment from its presenters. She is the third longest-serving Blue Peter presenter overall and its longest-serving female host, having passed Valerie Singleton’s record in October 2007.
She co-wrote the Black Mirror episode “Fifteen Million Merits” with her husband, Charlie Brooker. That move into television writing was a significant pivot. Her children’s book Cookie and the Most Annoying Boy in the World was published in 2019, followed by the sequel Cookie and the Most Annoying Girl in the World in 2020, along with her third children’s book, Fearless Fairy Tales. The transition from Saturday morning screen presence to respected author and writer is one of the more quietly impressive career shifts in this entire generation of presenters.
Katy Hill: From Blue Peter Badge to Radio Presenter
Katy became the 23rd Blue Peter presenter when she joined the show in 1995, hosting alongside the likes of Stuart Miles, Simon Thomas and Konnie Huq. Leaving the programme in 2000, she went on to front the final series of Live & Kicking. Her face was genuinely everywhere during the peak of 90s children’s television, moving between the BBC’s two biggest Saturday morning brands in a way very few presenters managed.
After Live & Kicking ended, Katy had hosting spots on other BBC shows including Top of the Pops and Song for Europe, then moved into the world of radio, hosting a show for Capital. Between 2015 and 2017, she presented the Heart breakfast show in the Four Counties region alongside former Blue Peter co-presenter Stuart Miles. There is something fitting about two former Blue Peter presenters ending up sharing a radio studio together, decades after sharing a television set.
Stephen Mulhern: The Magician Who Never Stopped
He began his career at CITV presenting the children’s television shows Finger Tips and Tricky TV. When he was just 17, he became the youngest member of the prestigious Magic Circle, which brought about an appearance on the long-running television show Blue Peter. That combination of magic, charm and genuine likeability gave him a quality that transferred seamlessly from children’s television into prime time.
Mulhern went on to present various television shows for ITV, including Britain’s Got More Talent, Catchphrase, Deal or No Deal and Dancing on Ice. In late 2025 and throughout 2026, Mulhern’s career saw a significant evolution with the launch of Accidental Tourist, produced in collaboration with Ant and Dec’s Mitre Studios, featuring Stephen being sent to unfamiliar territories to face his numerous phobias. The show was such a ratings hit that ITV commissioned three additional specials in early 2026.
The SM:TV Live Reunion: A Moment That Said It All
On 26 December 2020, a one-off reunion documentary aired on ITV under the title The Story of SM:TV Live, featuring Ant, Dec and Cat reminiscing on their time on the show. It drew enormous warmth from audiences who had spent their childhoods watching those three interact. The series’ iconic sketch Chums was also recreated for the fifth episode of series 17 of Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway in March 2021, picking up the cliffhanger from the wedding episode twenty years after it originally aired.
The reunion pointed to something real about what that era of television meant. The programme constantly won rating battles with the BBC’s Live & Kicking and became ITV’s most successful children’s programme since Tiswas. The nostalgia attached to these shows is not just sentiment; it reflects a genuinely competitive, energetic period in British children’s broadcasting that shaped a generation of viewers and launched careers that are still running today.
Tess Daly: From SM:TV Stand-In to Strictly Icon
After Deeley left in 2002, her replacement Tess Daly took over on SM:TV Live. It was a brief but significant introduction to the Saturday morning format, and the experience of live television in that chaotic, audience-facing environment clearly prepared her well for what came next. Strictly Come Dancing became her long-term home, and she co-hosted it for more than two decades.
The 2025 Christmas special marked the final time Tess and Claudia hosted the show, with the episode seeing former Gogglebox star Scarlett Moffatt lift the festive Glitterball trophy. A new presenting team is confirmed, with the announcement teasing “September 2026” for its debut. Tess Daly’s journey from unexpected SM:TV replacement to one of the most recognisable faces in British Saturday night television is, in retrospect, one of the more remarkable stories of this entire generation of presenters.
