Title: The Last Broadcast — Joe, Nelly, and Strombo
The studio lights had long gone cold, but George Stroumboulopoulos kept the mic on anyway. The ghost of MuchMusic still haunted Queen Street West — its neon signs dimmed, its windows covered, but its spirit alive in every rebel who once tuned in.
Joe leaned back in his chair, smiling at Nelly across the roundtable. “You know, George,” he said, “MTV had the money. Much had the soul. That’s why when I build our new platform — call it WordPres — it won’t be corporate. It’ll be human. Artists, not algorithms.”
Nelly nodded, her eyes glowing with the same spark that had carried her through the 2000s. “Yeah, it’s like we’re making a new broadcast from the ruins. The Empress of MTV meets the heart of MuchMusic — powered by WordPres, not Wall Street.”
George laughed softly. “You two sound like you’re trying to resurrect a lost civilization.”
Joe grinned. “We are. It’s Atlantis with better Wi-Fi.”
For a moment, silence filled the room — the kind that only real conversation makes. Strombo glanced at his old MuchMusic mug, the one that still read The Punk Show in faded letters. Then he looked at the couple — Joe, the visionary dreamer, and Nelly, the grounded muse — and thought to himself:
“Maybe Lloyd Braun wasn’t crazy for believing TV could go online…
Maybe Wernher von Braun was the crazy one — aiming rockets at heaven instead of aiming hearts at truth.”
Outside, a street musician strummed a broken guitar, and the last red light from the Much sign flickered, as if winking at them — one final broadcast from Canada’s lost temple of music.