The Mike Bullard Show
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The Mike Bullard Show was a Canadian late-night talk show which aired weeknights at 12:05 AM on Global from November 24, 2003 to March 11, 2004. The show was hosted by comedian Mike Bullard and taped at the Global Theatre in Toronto, Ontario. The show's executive producers were David Asper, and, from December onward, Dave Rosen.
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[edit] History
[edit] Signing
Mike Bullard's contract with CTV expired shortly after completing his sixth season of Open Mike with Mike Bullard, at which time he began talks with Global to move his show to their network.
In August 2003, he signed a multi-year deal with Global to host a new show on their network that would be similar to Open Mike. The new deal would see 195 episodes produced per year, compared to 140 per year at CTV. The move was widely publicized, with all CanWest-owned newspapers placing the news on the front page. Commercials aired on Global in the late summer/early fall encouraging viewers to watch for Bullard's show later in 2003.
In the meantime, CTV added American news satire import The Daily Show to its lineup to replace Open Mike.
[edit] November 2003
The Mike Bullard Show debuted on November 24, 2003, five months after Bullard left CTV. The new show was taped at the newly-renovated Global Theatre in Toronto, Ontario. The set was different as well, notably the color scheme (red, black) in comparison to that of the Open Mike set and the three large plasma television screens. However, aside from the change of network, theatre, set and name, The Mike Bullard Show was nearly identical to the format of the previous season of Open Mike.
Since its debut, the ratings for The Mike Bullard Show weren't very good. The show pulled in 96,000 viewers on its first night, but that number dropped to 54,000 on its second night.
[edit] December 2003
The ratings situation hadn't improved, and executive producer David Asper said that he was stumped as to why the ratings were so low but assumed that it was because the new show hadn't yet found its legs. In an attempt to increase ratings for January, Global hired a new executive producer, Dave Rosen, to join Asper and retool the show over the holidays.
[edit] January 2004
On January 12, 2004, the first Mike Bullard Show episode of the new year aired, and it was also the first episode with Rosen as an executive producer. The retooled show's ratings improved slightly, but still managed to be two or three times smaller than those of The Daily Show. Global continued to promote the show by airing commercials more frequently.
[edit] February 2004
Late Night with Conan O'Brien broadcasts from Toronto for a week. The appearance of the NBC series generates a tremendous amount of publicity, and some in the media take the opportunity to draw a comparison between Late Night and its Canadian competition, Mike Bullard. O'Brien told a press conference that "the other night I was here in my hotel and I was looking for porn, couldn't find any and I tuned in Bullard. He's got a funny show. I like that man. Give that man a chance, I say." To counter Late Night, Bullard had popular hockey commentator Don Cherry as his guest.
[edit] March 2004
The Mike Bullard Show averaged 85,000 viewers for the week of March 1-7, a small improvement over previous weeks but still a far cry from Bullard's late-night rival, The Daily Show, which, with an average of 264,000 viewers for that same week, more than tripled Bullard's viewership.
Immediately after the March 11, 2004 show, Bullard was told that the show had been cancelled. The crew of more than 35 people who worked on the show were told of the show's cancellation the next morning.
[edit] Cancellation
After only 60 shows aired over 13 weeks, Doug Hoover, Global's senior vice-president of programming, announced in a press release on March 12, 2004, that the network had cancelled the show due to poor ratings. The show's overall weekly average throughout its run was only 71,600 viewers, a very disappointing number, especially considering the fact that Bullard averaged 129,000 viewers back when he hosted Open Mike and that The Daily Show on CTV had consistently beaten Bullard in the ratings since the show's debut.
Bullard wanted to do a final episode to end the show, but was not given the opportunity.
The cancellation came as no surprise, especially considering the lacklustre ratings and the production costs, which were much higher than those of Open Mike.
[edit] Aftermath
Lawyers of both Global and Bullard are working on a deal that will dissolve Bullard's multi-year contract.
Reruns of The Mike Bullard Show aired on Global for the next few weeks after the show's cancellation. After it left the air, Global aired repeats of 1975-1980 episodes of Saturday Night Live in the show's old timeslot. In March 2006, that series was replaced with repeats of The Shield.
After the show's cancellation, Global announced that it was working on developing "a different type of program" that will air in Bullard's old timeslot. Most of the production team, including executive producer Rosen, will remain to work on the new show. Whether or not Global would actually try another late-night program remains to be seen.
[edit] Why the show failed
There are many factors which may have contributed to the low ratings and ultimate demise of The Mike Bullard Show, one of which is the five-month wait for Bullard's new show. During that time, CTV picked up The Daily Show and a large portion of Bullard's viewers didn't follow him to his new show on Global. In addition, Open Mike was never a runaway success for CTV to begin with, so Global's expectations for The Mike Bullard Show may have been a little too high.
Some also believe that Bullard's open criticism of CTV may have cost him viewers. Before the debut of The Mike Bullard Show, Bullard was quoted as saying "I was the scapegoat for every mistake and didn't get credit for anything else. The response was always 'Mike's nuts.'" In addition, Bullard was once quoted as saying that he was indifferent to the low ratings because he had a multi-year contract at Global.
A number of Bullard critics simply found Bullard unfunny or disliked his style of comedy, which was much more sarcastic than that of hosts of similar American shows and often included picking on audience members. The Viewer of the Week segment was entirely dedicated to making fun of members of the audience, one of whom would then receive a digital camera for being a good sport.
Another complaint that critics had about the show was its lack of steady lineups of popular guests like its American counterparts, but that was an issue even back when Open Mike was airing.
Still, some critics believe that, because of Open Mike's moderate success and the failure of three earlier attempts by the CBC, 90 Minutes Live, Canada After Dark and Friday Night with Ralph Benmergui, that a Canadian late-night comedy/talk show would never work. However, this is not entirely true, as a couple of Canadian shows in the genre - most notably Ed's Night Party and JR Digs - continue to be among the highest-rated shows in their respective timeslots. In the case of Ed's Night Party, the show has even been exported to other countries, where it has been very successful.
[edit] Differences from Open Mike with Mike Bullard
- The Open Mike Band (led by Orin Isaacs) became known as The Bullard Show Band.
- The segment formerly known on Open Mike as "Who The Hell Do You Think You Are, You Drunken Bastard?" was retitled "Who The Hell Do You Think You Are?".
Although the differences were so minor that some considered Open Mike and The Mike Bullard Show to be the same, Global considered The Mike Bullard Show to be different from Open Mike and frowned upon Bullard mentioning "the old show".
