For all of the singing shows that have popped up over the last few years, I'm really surprised that a Battle of the Bands type show hasn't popped up. There have been some shows that are close but I can't recall an honest-to-goodness rock'n'roll battle of the bands. I think it would be a good way to get up-and-coming bands some publicity and it could prove to be an interesting creative endeavor as well.

The way that I'd pop some creativity into it is that I'd give each band time to perform three songs. The first song would be their own. The second song would be a cover song, chosen by the fans. To make it an interactive experience, the fans can vote for what song they want to hear the people to play the following week. So the polling would end on Sunday and the band would have to arrange a cover by showtime (I assume it's a Friday or Saturday night show.) Not only does this add an interesting way to judge the bands (who covers it the best, whose cover is most original, etc.) but it gives potential footage for little packages to play during the show. We'd watch the band collaborate, perhaps we see some tension in the band as they write the song or as things aren't coming together as the performance draws near. For the third song, I'd do something similar: fans can send in stories, photos, videos, etc. and one is chosen at random and it has to be the inspiration for a song. They'd have to write the song and explain what they were thinking, how the fan photo/story inspired them.

Now, two songs in a week might be daunting but I think the challenge adds to the show and, most importantly, gets the fans involved. Besides being part of the process (voting on the cover song, supplying the inspiration for the song), the fact that the fans would know beforehand what song and muse had been chosen could add some intrigue to the upcoming show. Every Thursday, updates on how the bands are progressing could be posted on the web.
As for the winner, that could be kept as somewhat of a surprise as well. The winner could either be announced on the web (fairly anticlimatic) or we wouldn't know who the winner is until the following week. That might be hard to pull off in the Twitter age so maybe we just have judges who pick the winner, although that kind of kills the interactive element. Announcing the winner would be the toughest part but I kind of like keeping the tension until the following week.

I'm not sure if we bring back the winner the next week or make it more tournament style but I kind of like the idea of a returning "champion". Time wise though, I think it would have to be three songs by two bands or two songs by three bands. Six songs around four minutes each eats up 24 minutes of show time, which leaves about 19 minutes for the rest of the show (comments from judges, packages about the bands preparing, interviews with the bands, etc.)
And while the competition element might turn some people off, I'm sure the creative element would interest some people and we might be able to get together a supergroup show or mini-season for charity.

At the end of the season, the winners can go on a small tour or maybe they open up for a big name band (that would explain the judges although it could backfire if the most popular band doesn't fit their genre.) Clearly, I haven't worked out all of the kinks of this show but it seems like something that should be doable. You could even do different versions for different channels. A rock version for Spike, an indie one for IFC, etc. I doubt this show will be a ratings monster but it should be cheap and fairly easy to do and, at the very least, it seems like a great idea for web content for a music magazine like Spin or Rolling Stone. In fact, it might be easier to do as web content. I just think it's a no brainer of an idea and am puzzled as to why it hasn't been tried yet.