If you saw a wounded animal by the roadside you’d stop to help, wouldn’t you? You’d take it to a vet, or put it out of its misery. That’s all we’re asking you to do for Channel Nine, a fallen dinosaur bleeding from a thousand raptor slashes and brontosaurus bites and paralysed with fear that its 50th year as ruler of the swamp could be its last.

Some people say the Tyrannosaurus Rex deserves its current agony, as punishment for years of arrogance towards viewers, but this column begs you to rise above revenge and start generating the kind of new program ideas that Nine seems unable to think up for itself.

You may gain inspiration from Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy, who recently offered a vision for the future of home entertainment in America’s TV Guide magazine. Whedon predicted that this year "approximately 67 percent of all television will be CSI-based, including CSI: Des Moines; CSI: Vancouver made to look like Chicago; CSI: New York But A Different Part Than Gary Sinise Is In; and NCSI: SVU WKRP, which covers every possible gruesome crime with a groovin’ ’70s beat ...

"Lost has that one-of-a-kind alchemy that really can’t be copied. Therefore, look for the original series Misplaced, as well as Unfound; Not So Much with the Whereabouts; and Just Pull Over and Ask!

"Obviously, we’ll see advances in technology. TiVo, iPods, streaming video — the way we watch TV is changing dramatically. It’s on our phones, in our cars — even projected on specialised eyeglasses. But don’t listen to the talk about having shows beamed directly into your brain. That’s science-fiction nonsense. Shows will be stored in the pancreas and will enter the brain through the bloodstream after being downloaded into your iHole."

In devising Nine’s new schedule, don’t be afraid to steal and adapt existing formulas — the networks do it to each other all the time. Last year, readers of this column came up with these suggestions for new shows, based on the hits and events of the time: Celebrity Striptease, Visa Roulette, Desperate Actors, Garden Makeovers Revisited and Quarantine Beagle Brigade.

If you did a similar exercise with the hits of this year you might suggest that Nine launches Thank God You’re Fat; Desperate Comedians; Dieting With The Stars; Where Are The Losers Now; Prison Footy (AFL version for southern states); 60 to 1 (a countdown of Richard Carleton’s finest minutes); and House Whisperer, aka Spicks and Spooks (in which a beautiful medium puts silly questions to a grumpy doctor).

Broadening the sources, there’s got to be a travel show based on the activities of the Australian Wheat Board; a sitcom about rival bikie gangs; a mystery series about marooned refugees from West Papua; a reality show in which Peter Costello, Tony Abbott and Brendan Nelson have to stay in a house together until John Howard announces his retirement; and of course, Kim’s Factional Feud in which viewers get prizes for guessing whether the host will forget the names of more contestants from the left or from the right.

Lets hear your Save the Rex program pitches, below.