[Teilifís]

That is what they air in that time slot, yes. To be fair to them, that is one time slot, and a time that not many are watching tv. Those that are have Ireland AM and BBC Breakfast.  They won’t run news at breakfast time because they are mad scared of canibalising Morning Ireland. They tried a wierd “late breakfast” format a few years back (it aired between 9-11am) and it didn’t really work.

Also they do show parliamentary coverage (Leaders Questions, basically our PMQs) in the morning when the Dail is in session.

It's a real catch 22 situation. As a whole, Irish people love the radio. Hence why the schedule on radio is at its strongest on both national and local radio during the morning and mid mornings. I genuinly think the best offering they could do would be a visualised Morning Ireland on RTÉ One instead of only on the news channel. As mentioned above, the other two hours could be used for the other filler programmes if they so wish (again...why the hell is Ellen still on...?_ but 12pm is usually for Leaders Questions on Tuesdays & Wednesday anyway.

I believe (but also open to correction) there is also a union issue at RTÉ television preventing an on air show before 9am. Must find a source for that, but I recall it being said around the time Morning Edition was launched...