How did David Oulton pitch his talk show to OUTtv?

Googling the broadcaster’s head office and investigating executives on LinkedIn as he was having a coffee, he decided to cold call the Vancouver-based LGBTQ2S+ network. Aiming to leave a message for an executive about Face to Face with David, he thought his chances of connecting with someone were slim. A programming exec, however, picked up.

“I was not expecting it, I was like in sweatpants and a T-shirt… I said to her, ‘Hi, my name is David Oulton and I’m calling you from Calgary, I think I have a show that would be a good fit for your network. Please don’t hang up on me. I’m not a professional pitcher,’ ” recounts Oulton, who says he knew his show had potential and that he needed to pitch a broadcaster to take his series further.

Barely a year old at the time of Oulton’s pitch, the originally self-financed project series was acquired and renewed for a third season within a span of about two months.

It is now set to reach a larger audience with its season one premiere on OUTtv, airing in Canada, the U.S., U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and South Africa on Thursday (May 13) at 8 p.m. EDT.

“We get pitched a lot of talk shows,” says OUTtv head of programming Lauren Whitelaw, who picked up Oulton’s call. “This one just felt a little bit more authentic and honest, and being an LGBTQ+ Canadian that really made us stand up and take notice as well, because it’s someone interviewing people that are relevant to our audience by someone in our audience, so that was kind of interesting to us.”

Created, executive produced and hosted by Oulton, the series is produced by Calgary-based L&C Style. In each episode, Oulton sports a Versace robe and a glass of wine in hand while chatting with Hollywood talent and other notable guests.

Guests set for season three, which was co-produced by OUTtv and went to camera earlier this year, include American actor Margaret Cho; Wynonna Earp showrunner Emily Andras; U.S. real estate agent and TV personality Josh Flagg; journalist Gretchen Carlson; and Canadian actor/model Natasha Henstridge.

Born out of the pandemic, the show came to be when Oulton was stuck in his house and saw a number of high-profile celebrities taking to Instagram Live.

Calling all the famous people he knew, he tried the format – eventually dreaming bigger and landing a distribution agreement with Amazon.

With season one, which was shot in June 2020 and aired the following month on Amazon, Oulton hosted the series from his living room. However, for season two (which was shot in October 2020 and streamed in limited territories) and onwards, the series – which sees its creative team include producer Rae Farrer, and director Candace Schmidt and cinematographer Luis Gonzalez from L&C Style Productions – is hosted from the Fairmont Palliser in Calgary, with guests continuing to video-in.

“He didn’t set out to make this grand show, it just sort of happened during the pandemic and he thought ‘I’m bored, let’s start this interview show online,'” says Whitelaw, who serves as an executive producer on the show’s third season.

Whitelaw says Oulton is an engaging presence. “You want to sit down and chat with him like a friend, you want to open up. He’s very welcoming, bubbly and really just genuinely interested in what the guests have to say, which I think just makes for a better interview. It feels very one-on-one, I think that helps from these sort of online interviews is the guest’s comfortable in their own space and David’s comfortable in his space and that creates this living room kind of environment, which to us just makes a better interview,” Whitelaw says.

Although the network has previously had talk shows in the past, Whitelaw explains that Face to Face with David represents the first time a talk show was really about a host engaging the guests and creating a narrative for them, instead of going in with a set topic.

For Oulton, he says he tries to make the show as broad as possible and that he is proud to champion the LGBTQ2+ community.

“I hope that you watch it, whoever you are, wherever you are and whatever your own personal situation or circumstances are, I hope that you can sit down and be able to watch this show and enjoy it just like the next person. It’s casual, it’s lighthearted, it’s ridiculous, it’s funny and it’s serious. But the one thing that we strive to do is steer away from current events,” he says, adding that the show never discusses COVID outside of the question of “are doing you OK during these times.”

When asked about the future of the show, he notes that he’s still figuring that out but that he has developed an interest in the business side of the entertainment industry and would be interested in producing, but still getting to host his own show.