If fashion models really don't get out of bed for less than £10,000, TV3 must be paying loadsamoney for its latest acquisition.
The station revealed yesterday that top Irish model Amanda Byram (26) will join veteran broadcaster Mark Cagney to present the station's new breakfast television programme Ireland am. RTE-style, the presenters' respective salaries remained tightly under wraps.
With typical vagueness, TV3 would say only that the programme will be "an information-packed magazine from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. weekdays . . . friendly, informal and personality-driven . . . everything you need to know to start the day". It will start in September, but the exact date of transmission was not being released yesterday.
The 7 a.m. start means that Ms Byram will have to exit her boudoir at about 4 a.m. "That's normally when I am coming home," she explained at a press conference yesterday. "It's going to be tough . . . My body clock will have to adjust and I'll need an intravenous drip with lots of coffee."
The news will be a second blow to RTE, which has yet to announce details of a structured breakfast programme. In June, TV3 secured exclusive Irish rights to soccer's Champions League, which had audiences of up to 500,000 in its Network 2 slot.
An RTE spokeswoman said yesterday that there were no developments in relation to the scheduling of early-morning TV. She would not confirm whether a breakfast programme was included in the new autumn schedule, which will be announced today.
Mr Andrew Hanlon, head of news at TV3, was upbeat about the station's progress yesterday, saying that the latest figures revealed it had an 8 per cent audience share. "Our news bulletins are seen by around a million people each night, so that is obviously positive," he said.