TV3 to begin new breakfast service in September

The State's only independent commercial television station, tv3, has announced plans for a breakfast television service to begin in September.

The station's Ireland AM programme will run from 7.30 a.m. to 9 a.m. on weekdays, and will include "a mixture of lifestyle stories, health, safety, education and entertainment" along with celebrity interviews. The programme will also include regular bulletins from the station's news, weather and sports services.

The project has been in development for a number of months at tv3's Ballymount, Dublin, headquarters, but was kept secret even from the station's staff reporters. The series producer has not yet been appointed, and no presenters have been selected.

At present, RTE screens repeats of its afternoon show Open House in the slot tv3 is proposing for Ire- land AM. Open House features interviews, music and health and fashion items aimed at an older audience. Other breakfast shows tv3 would be competing with include ITV's GMTV and Channel 4's The Big Breakfast.

Details of a proposed RTE breakfast show were announced in September of last year, but the project never came to fruition. The Good Morning Ireland Television consortium, which included Planet 24, the maker of Channel 4's The Big Breakfast, planned to provide programming for RTE from 6.30 a.m. to 10.30 a.m.

The GMITV consortium, which was promoted by Smurfit Communications, would also have sold the advertising time and provided the production staff and presenters for the programming.

RTE would have retained editorial control of the programming and would have been paid a share of the profits. The programme was to begin last March.

RTE said last night it was "engaged in ongoing discussions" with GMITV. Announcing the breakfast programme yesterday, the station's CEO and managing director, Mr Rick Hetherington, said morning television in Ireland was extremely underdeveloped compared to that in the UK.