Paranormal television

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Paranormal television is a genre of popular television broadcasting. Its scope comprises purportedly factual investigations of paranormal phenomena, rather than the openly fictional representations found in such shows as The Ghosts of Motley Hall and Ghostbusters and cartoon series such as Scooby Doo or Rentaghost.

[edit] Issues

Ethical and legal issues are raised by the depiction of purportedly paranormal events on a television programme, and many countries have legal or advisory Codes of Practice to guide production companies and broadcasters in this area. In some parts of the world depictions of practices such as ouija boards, seances or mediumship may be illegal; in others they are merely considered under the codes relating to religious broadcasting. Such television can be challenging and problematic. In 1992 the BBC faced a furore when its pseudo-documentary Ghostwatch caused viewers to panic; the transmission was linked to at least one suicide and two teenagers were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

[edit] History

Accounts of supernatural occurrences have always been common in the print media—the 1705 pamphlet "A True Relation of the Apparition of One Mrs Veal" by the journalist Daniel Defoe being a famous example—and local news programmes in the UK and USA have featured ghost stories since the 1960's. Paranormal television arose from this tradition.

One of the earliest paranormal TV shows was Sightings, hosted by Tim White which ran for six years from 1991. It bounced between time slots and stations—because of local station management or ratings—and ultimately settled into SciFi Network's programming schedule. Similar shows include Unsolved Mysteries and Unexplained Mysteries, with at least one episode dedicated to the paranormal. These shows claim to be more credible than the one-shot specials which sometimes appear up on Prime Time television, and few have lasted beyond three seasons. Another early example was Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World which explored fortean phenomena.

Discovery Channel started to explore the genre with some success from 1996. In 2000 the British satellite channel, LivingTV launched the series Most Haunted and its success helped spawn other shows on the channel, including Dead Famous and Jane Goldman Investigates and the channel developed a distinctive identity based on paranormal programming.

Other notable shows have included Creepy Canada (which slightly predates Most Haunted), Proof Positive and Ghost Hunters (not to be confused with the earlier European Ghosthunters). YTV, a Canadian youth oriented station has a more toned down version with Mystery Hunters.