![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Oh-Yeah-screengrab-1-300x169.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Screengrab, Red House TV.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople,\u201d Downing explained, \u201cdon\u2019t know what this is. And when you try to describe it to them, because it didn\u2019t exist before, they\u2019re like \u2018You mean like Good Day Tampa Bay?\u2019 No, it\u2019s the opposite of that \u2013 this is freewheeling, and late-night, there\u2019s a live band and a live studio audience. Most of it is unscripted. It\u2019s \u2018Get the cameras on play and let\u2019s go.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Oh-Yeah-1-300x225.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
The Black Honkeys, aka the Oh Yeah Yeahs.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s onstage foil.<\/p>\n
\u201cSure we have booked guests, and a producer and a director,\u201d added Downing. \u201cBut I\u2019m not reading from a teleprompter. The Honkeys are a local institution. It feels like a private party; that\u2019s kind of the vibe we\u2019re after.\u201d<\/p>\n
So far, the guest roster has included actors (Eugenie Bondurant and Robbie Rist \u2013 he was \u201cCousin Oliver\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
Downing, who\u2019s Leader of Brand for the Tampa-based real estate marketing firm United Landmark Associates, spent his childhood in Tierra Verde.<\/p>\n
\u201cI grew up one of nine kids, all Irish Catholic wisenheimers \u2013 the whole family\u2019s just not really afraid of anything, or saying anything,\u201d he said. \u201cSo from a very young age, we were encouraged to be very comfortable talking to people, because we grew up in a very large household.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Oh-Yeah-4-300x192.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
St. Pete artist Lance Rodgers was a recent guest.<\/p>\n
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. \u201cBut 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think when a region gets to the level where it can laugh at itself, that\u2019s really a tipping point. And I think we\u2019re there. This is a show that doesn\u2019t take itself very seriously. We are the first butt of all our own jokes. And regionally, we can laugh at ourselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cClearly 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Downing sees Oh Yeah, which is almost entirely self-financed at this point, as testing the waters. \u201cMy idea is that this is a three-year deal. Hopefully get to profitability in three years. The first year is \u2018Just get it out there.\u2019 I was going around soliciting, trying to get sponsors. And I thought \u2018Don\u2019t worry about that.\u2019 And that was really the thing that allowed everything else to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
The recently-taped episodes will run through January on Red House, after which a new batch will be created.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all part of David Downing\u2019s vision.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Tonight Show didn\u2019t damage L.A., David Letterman didn\u2019t damage New York \u2013 in fact, quite the opposite. It made them hip, right? It projected a vision of those destinations as being knowing, and fun, and confident.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot only completely willing, but going out of its way to laugh at itself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Could the Tampa Bay area use its own late night-style TV talk show? David Downing believes the answer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59325,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-59324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}