Introducing the bay area’s first late night-style talk show

Could the Tampa Bay area use its own late night-style TV talk show? David Downing believes the answer is a resounding Oh Yeah!

For three years, the longtime CEO (2014-2019) of Visit St. Pete-Clearwater has been the executive producer and host of a cable TV travel series, Undiscovered America (production on the next season is about to commence).

So he’s more than comfortable in front of a camera.

Pilot episodes of Oh Yeah were shot in 2024, at the Palladium Theater’s Side Door Cabaret, with the intention of turning it into a semi-regular series. Between hurricanes, a death in his family, the election and other professional obligations, “The year just spun out,” Downing said. “It got away from me, and this year, I really recalibrated. I said ‘I want to get this project done. I want to have one complete season out in the universe.’ And that’s what’s happening right now.”

Downing and his production crew returned to the Side Door Nov. 18 and 19 to shoot six brand-new episodes of Oh Yeah; six more were made in September. The show is produced, and streamed via, Red House Streaming TV.

Oh Yeah on Red House. Click here.

Screengrab, Red House TV.

“People,” Downing explained, “don’t know what this is. And when you try to describe it to them, because it didn’t exist before, they’re like ‘You mean like Good Day Tampa Bay?’ No, it’s the opposite of that – this is freewheeling, and late-night, there’s a live band and a live studio audience. Most of it is unscripted. It’s ‘Get the cameras on play and let’s go.’”

The Black Honkeys, aka the Oh Yeah Yeahs.

The band is the Black Honkeys, a local funk and R&B outfit, re-christened for the show the Oh Yeah Yeahs. Frontman/vocalist Phil Esposito is Downing’s onstage foil.

“Sure we have booked guests, and a producer and a director,” added Downing. “But I’m not reading from a teleprompter. The Honkeys are a local institution. It feels like a private party; that’s kind of the vibe we’re after.”

So far, the guest roster has included actors (Eugenie Bondurant and Robbie Rist – he was “Cousin Oliver” on The Brady Buuch, and lives locally), musicians (JudyAnne Jackson, Mwiza and Alex Harris), politicians (St. Pete Mayor Ken Welch and gubernatorial candidate David Jolly), authors (L.L. Kircher and Peter Kagayama), artists and more.

Downing, who’s Leader of Brand for the Tampa-based real estate marketing firm United Landmark Associates, spent his childhood in Tierra Verde.

“I grew up one of nine kids, all Irish Catholic wisenheimers – the whole family’s just not really afraid of anything, or saying anything,” he said. “So from a very young age, we were encouraged to be very comfortable talking to people, because we grew up in a very large household.”

St. Pete artist Lance Rodgers was a recent guest.

He is adamant that Oh Yeah, with its slick production values and fast-paced, professional tone, is much more than another attempt to promote the area as a tourism destination via entertainment media. “But it does speak to a certain level of depth and sophistication of culture, humor and awareness that will definitely resonate with the right people. Particularly for Florida.

“I think when a region gets to the level where it can laugh at itself, that’s really a tipping point. And I think we’re there. This is a show that doesn’t take itself very seriously. We are the first butt of all our own jokes. And regionally, we can laugh at ourselves.

“Clearly I have a pure affection for this destination. Warts and all. And I also get that a lot of image-building, because of my past, can be pretty glossed-over, can be very saccharine and kind of inauthentic.”

Downing sees Oh Yeah, which is almost entirely self-financed at this point, as testing the waters. “My idea is that this is a three-year deal. Hopefully get to profitability in three years. The first year is ‘Just get it out there.’ I was going around soliciting, trying to get sponsors. And I thought ‘Don’t worry about that.’ And that was really the thing that allowed everything else to happen.”

The recently-taped episodes will run through January on Red House, after which a new batch will be created.

It’s all part of David Downing’s vision.

“The Tonight Show didn’t damage L.A., David Letterman didn’t damage New York – in fact, quite the opposite. It made them hip, right? It projected a vision of those destinations as being knowing, and fun, and confident.

“Not only completely willing, but going out of its way to laugh at itself.”