There’s nothing funny about Brent Haynes’ new office. It’s black. It’s small. It’s almost entirely empty. There’s a laptop (black) on his desk (black), where the VP of The Comedy Network sits with his back to an immense bookcase which is empty (and again, black), but for a single box of DVDs. Season one of the sci-fi series Eureka.

Haynes now doubles as VP for Space and, he explains, is getting caught up on its shows. He usually works at the CTVglobemedia offices outside of downtown Toronto, but has staked a claim on this little room in the former CHUM-City Building.

In the 10 years since Comedy launched, Haynes has sat through a lot of shows, both foreign and domestic, good and bad. Back then, he says, the channel was experimenting almost day-to-day to find something that would click with its audience.

‘It was very different from working at CBC,’ his previous job, he says, ‘and doing big, broad comedies.’ Foreign shows rarely worked – and still don’t unless they come with a big name attached or are really off the wall – and the Comedy execs cast a wide net among Canadian producers, bringing on some 20 new shows per year, looking for a hit.

Sketch comedy was a hot property back then, but now stand-up is big, as are shows that have a reality-like feel. Hence the appearances of The Sarah Silverman Program and homemades like The Jon Dore Television Show and Keys to the VIP.

‘If it’s a scripted show, it has to feel real, so that you know those people, you know those situations,’ he says.

There have been hits – Corner Gas, Comedy Inc., Odd Job Jack, Puppets Who Kill – as well as misses. The Gavin Crawford Show, one of Haynes’ personal favorites, stumbled through one and a half seasons at the tail end of the sketch boom, while the more recent Punched Up failed to cash in on the faux-reality craze. The show followed a team of comedy writers as they reworked the lives of real-world people.

‘It wasn’t real enough,’ he offers. ‘What we wanted to do was make a show that felt more like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.’ In the end, the premise was too contrived. ‘That’s TV,’ says Haynes, hands in the air with a shrug. ‘You take some risks, you fall flat on your face, and that’s okay. Maybe 30% of what we do is a hit, like batting .300 in baseball. If we strike out 70% of the time, we’re still winning.’

Mike Bullard also delivered an early hit for the channel and CTV – providing a pre-eTalk platform for celebrity talk and pitching a Canadian flag on the crowded landscape of late-night talk with Open Mike. But since Bullard’s ill-fated jump to Global, the two channels have done little with domestic talk or variety. Haynes says Comedy will try again, sooner or later, but stresses that these shows are among the hardest to do.

‘People have to identify with the host,’ he notes. ‘We haven’t raced back to [late night] again because there are few people out there that can do it. There are a lot of great performers and comics, but to do a nightly or weekly show…’ he trails off, shaking his head. ‘We’ll go back there, but it’s just a matter of how, when or why.’

Unlike the more scattergun approach of the old days – throw 20 shows against the wall and see what sticks – Haynes and his boss Ed Robinson are more picky these days, and will put only half as many homemade shows on air. They are, however, putting in a lot of money. A licence fee from Comedy can come in at 60%, 70% or even higher. Keys to the VIP, now in season two with Buck Productions and Alpha Male Productions, gets 90% of its budget from the Comedy coffers.

‘We’re spending more money because we want our shows to work,’ he says. ‘We don’t want to just make 20 shows to meet our commitment. We’d rather make 10 shows and hope they’re hits, because everybody’s relying less and less on funding agencies.’