The Mike Bullard Show is 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 Television Theatre in Toronto, Ontario. The show's executive producers were David Asper and, from December onward, Dave Rosen.
The short lived show maintained almost exactly the same format as Bullard's previous successful show, Open Mike with Mike Bullard, which had ended its six-year run only five months earlier. Despite this, The Mike Bullard Show was a ratings disaster. On average, the programme lost more than 50% of the audience that Open Mike had averaged in its final season, and was cancelled after 12 weeks.
History
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 with Jon Stewart to its lineup to replace Open Mike, scheduling it to begin airing at 11:59 pm. 6 minutes before Bullard's start time, and launched it three weeks before Bullard's show premiered on Global.
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 Television Theatre on The Esplanade in Toronto, Ontario. The set was different as well, notably the colour 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.
From its debut, the ratings for The Mike Bullard Show were very low. The show attracted 96,000 viewers on its first night, but that number declined to 54,000 on its second night, compared to Jon Stewart's average audience that week of 214,000. 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.
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".