Ball's in your court, CTV

Unless you've been avoiding mass media for the past week, you've surely noticed that a bunch of Hollywood writers are on strike. While this won't affect many of your favourite shows for quite some time, programs which have a very fast writing-to-air turnover - primarily late-night shows - are already into repeats.

This just so happens to include The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, CTV's midnight-to-1 am block. Now, I don't think it's any stretch to say that when your show is based on topical humour...well, it kinda loses a lot of its punch a few weeks or months down the line. This is why, much as I love the show, I can't watch the 22 Minutes repeats on The Comedy Network - some of them are more than ten years old, and there's only so many times you can say "Stockwell Day?!? This must have been when he was relevant! How hilarious!".

But, you ask, what can CTV replace Stewart and Colbert with? Well, I have an answer that may surprise you...actually, it's an idea I'd had for them for quite a while, and was planning to write about eventually - this strike has only expedited matters. It all started back when I found this clip on Youtube. Now, as much of a classic as 'Signs' is, there's no way the Five Man Electrical Band is doing anything more than playing county fairs these days. And as the clip shows, it's not for lack of talent. There are plenty of others out there in the same boat - April Wine, Helix, Tom Cochrane, etc. - bands and singers who were huge in Canada, but never big outside of it, and are now suffering in anonymity.

How to fix this? Simple. At least until the strike is over, replace Stewart and Colbert with your own in-house late night show - similar to Open Mike, only better. Pick a host from somewhere in the vast herd of CTV employees - Jeff Hutcheson, Tino Monte, James Duthie, or someone else - or even reach outside and bring in a Kim Mitchell or Sean Cullen. Maybe even splurge on Norm MacDonald. Have a different band every night to play a couple of their hits, and get a pair of decent guests for each show. You have the studio and the connections - it wouldn't be that expensive to produce, and should the strike go on REALLY long, you might even be able to sell it to an American network.

Most importantly, I'd watch.

--Ryan