As PrideVision, the channel maintained a national advisory committee to provide input and feedback on the station's programming and its effectiveness at serving LGBT communities.
[5] The committee included businessman and activist Jim Deva, Outlooks publisher Roy Heale, Egale Canada executive director John Fisher, Suzanne Girard of Divers/Cité, Carmela Laurignano of Evanov Communications, Winnipeg mayor Glen Murray, Toronto city councillor Kyle Rae, Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto pastor Brent Hawkes, Ruby Hamilton of PFLAG and Halifax businesswoman Shelley Taylor.
[12] To help grow its subscriber base, PrideVision offered another free preview period to its distributors, and launched an advertising campaign comparing this business situation to impotency.
In an effort to reduce its losses, staff at PrideVision were cut from 25 to 10,[11] most of its original programming was dropped, and the street-level studio on Church Street in Toronto was closed in December 2002.
[13] On December 3, 2003, Headline Media Group announced that it was selling a majority interest in PrideVision to 6166954 Canada, Inc., a consortium led by broadcaster William Craig.
[15] In November, PrideVision expanded its adult programming—now branded with the double entendre-tinged monicker Hard on PrideVision—into primetime (from 9:00 p.m.—6:00 a.m. Eastern Time), in preparation for the expansion of the block into a 24-hour service, alongside a non-adult network tentatively named "Glow TV".
Even with the launch of Hard and the removal of all adult content from the newly renamed OUTtv, the channel was still facing resistance from Shaw Communications and its national satellite television service, Star Choice.
Both distributors wanted to continue packaging OUTtv as a standalone premium service rather than a general interest specialty channel, which most other major television providers had done.
[20] On July 19, 2006, Shavick Entertainment, a film and television producer based in Vancouver, British Columbia, announced it would acquire the majority interest in both OUTtv and Hard on PrideVision from William Craig.
Shavick also announced plans to rename OUTtv, upgrade the technology infrastructure, and provide a wider variety of programming to the channel.
[28] OUTtv has also seen ratings success with original drama series Sex & Violence, created by Canadian film director Thom Fitzgerald.
[31] Media reports revealed on January 11, 2017, noted that the agreement to purchase the channel closed in December 2016 and that the new owners of OUTtv would shift focus from the specialty channel to its streaming service, OUTtvGO, citing positive audience trends for adopting online television services and sagging cable subscription numbers.
[33] In June 2019, OUTtv and Bell Media announced that they had co-commissioned a Canadian version of RuPaul's Drag Race for the network and the Bell-owned Crave.
As part of the deal, OUTtv and Crave also share Canadian rights to the franchise, airing episodes of the U.S. and British version on their platforms day-and-date with their domestic premieres.
[39] OUTtv's reality dating series For the Love of DILFs, hosted by Stormy Daniels, premiered on January 31, 2023, and received mainstream coverage.
[46] Expanding on its international complement, OUTtv acquired global SVOD rights to the BBC competition series Glow Up: Britain's Next Make-Up Star in 2024.
[47] OUTtv's programming consists of originally produced LGBTQ+ content (Sew Fierce, Dating Unlocked, Sugar Highs and Call Me Mother), as well domestic and foreign acquisitions.
In mid-2006, OUTtv ventured into its first international market when it reached a deal with SelecTV to distribute the network on its lineup in Australia through a package called "CurveTV".