Paranormal television

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/children's series such as "Scooby Doo" or "Rentaghost".

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 1992 the BBC faced a furore when its pseudo-documentary Ghostwatch caused viewers to panic;Citation | last = Frean | first = Alexandra | title = Watchdog condemns BBC ghost drama | newspaper = The Times | pages = 12 | year = 1995 |date=June 29] [Citation | last = Culf | first = Andrew | title = BBC censured over Hallowe'en spoof | newspaper = The Guardian | pages = 8 | year = 1995 |date=June 29] the transmission was linked to at least one suicide [Citation | title = Parents blame BBC spoof for son's suicide | newspaper = The Guardian | pages = 3 | year = 1992 |date=December 23] and two teenagers were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. [cite journal | last = Simons | first = D | coauthors = Silveira, W R | title = Post-traumatic stress disorder in children after television programmes | journal = British Medical Journal | volume = 308 | issue = 6925 | pages = 389–390 | date = February 5 1994 | url = http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/308/6925/389 | accessdate = 2008-01-24 | pmid = 8124147]

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, the most popular paranormal investigation show today. 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.

Recently, this genre has expanded on to the internet in the form of web television. Specifically, www.biggytv.com has a large collection of paranormal videos in the paranormal phenomena section. Paranormal tv includes parapsychology, aliens and UFOs, ghosts and hauntings, and unexplained phenomena.

A new breed of paranormal TV is now emerging following the revolutionary format of "Docufiction" pioneered by the new show, "The Sleep of Reason ", [http://www.thesleepofreason.com] which merges fiction and reality.

Paranormal TV shows

References