The show was hosted by comedian Mike Bullard and taped at the Global Television Theatre in Toronto, Ontario.
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.
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.
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.
The appearance of the NBC series generated a tremendous amount of publicity, and some in the media took 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.
After only 60 episodes aired over 12 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.