Everything about Paranormal Television totally explained
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; the transmission was linked to at least one suicide and two teenagers were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
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 , which merges fiction and reality.
Paranormal TV shows
Further Information
Get more info on 'Paranormal Television'.
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