Cable networks not afraid to make ghosts' presence known

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Cable networks not afraid to make ghosts' presence known
January 6, 2009
By Susan King
Chicago Tribune

Vampires may be getting all the glory these days, but when it comes to day-in, day-out spooky family entertainment, it's hard to beat ghosts.

The popularity of ghost and paranormal stories is nothing new -- from the King's ghost in Shakespeare's "Hamlet" to Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." But it's on the small screen that ghosts are most alive. The first two hours of CBS' Friday night lineup are devoted to "Ghost Whisperer," now in its fifth season, and "Medium," which joined the network after five seasons on NBC. Both dramatic series revolve around women who can see dead people.

Several cable networks have built their lineups around ghost/paranormal reality shows. These series follow investigators going to residential homes, historical locations, abandoned hospitals, prisons and even aircraft carriers that are supposedly haunted.

Thanks in part to the success of these shows, ghost hunting has become a big business. Several Internet sites, including Amazon.com, offer equipment for the budding paranormal investigator.

So why are so many willing to see spirits?

"Some people would say it's a trend, but I think it's always been a trend, this borderline between the apparently civilized world and the wider, larger, scary world, whether it's literally the wild or unseen," says Marjorie Kaplan, general manager of Animal Planet.

The network has two paranormal series, "Lost Tapes" and "The Haunted," the latter about people whose pets feel the presence of spirits; it began in November and returns to the lineup with new episodes Jan. 15.

Ian Sander, an executive producer and director on "Ghost Whisperer," believes these shows give audiences hope that there is an afterlife. "We live in a time, God knows post-9/11, that people need to believe in more," Sander says. "They want to be optimistic."

The majority of these series attract more females than males. "Women love horror movies and haunted shows about the afterlife," notes Mark Stern, executive vice president of programming for Syfy, home to the popular "Ghost Hunters" series.

"If you look at these shows, they deliver a real mix of emotions -- a visceral one about the investigation and another about who might still be here and what happened to them." Here's a look at several of the most watched cable paranormal series:

"Ghost Hunters," (Syfy). The cable network has the top three paranormal series on the air. "Ghost Hunters," which begins its sixth season in March, averages 3 million viewers weekly.

The show's spinoffs "Ghost Hunters International" and "Ghost Hunters Academy," which concluded its first season in December, also have performed well. Another popular paranormal show, "Destination Truth," is on hiatus.

"Ghost Hunters" is led by Roto-Rooter Rhode Island plumbers Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson, who formed the Atlantic Paranormal Society about 20 years ago after what they say were personal paranormal encounters. They investigate homes and hotels like the Stanley, the basis for "The Shining." They also have done live investigations over the seasons.

"Ghost Hunters," says Stern, takes a "very sober-eyed" view of the paranormal.

"Their success rate (at finding ghosts) is so low that in the beginning it was counterintuitive for us. There was a concern if they were not finding a ghost in every episode why are people watching the show. But we quickly found that that is what gave them total credibility."

"Paranormal State," (A&E). This 30-minute weekly series, now in its fourth season, revolves around the case files of the Paranormal Research Society, a group that began with Penn State University college students.

Ryan Buell, the soft-spoken director-founder who says he had his first paranormal experience as a child, leads his teams in investigating cases of possible haunting and possession.

Spinning off from the series is "Psychic Kids: Children of the Paranormal," in its second season. Set for a Jan. 19 premiere is "Paranormal Cops," about a group of ghost-hunting Chicago police officers.

"Ghost Lab," (Discovery). Discovery entered the paranormal series field in October with this hourlong show, which features Texas brothers Brad and Barry Klinge, who lead their Everyday Paranormal investigative team inside a 24-foot "ghost lab" filled with scientific equipment. The places they visited include Alcatraz. The series concluded its first season Dec. 29.

"Discovery has been involved with paranormal shows for a long time, but not as a series," says general manager John Ford.

"We can't come from the true-believer side," Ford says. "We want to come from more of the impartial-science stance. And the Klinge brothers have erected and assembled this toolshed of measuring devices to allow them to measure things like extreme temperature changes and other things they think are indicators of paranormal activity."

"Ghost Adventures," (Travel Channel). The network's Friday-evening lineup is devoted to ghostly tales, with this spooky show anchoring the evening. The one-hour series, which premiered in 2008, chronicles the investigations of documentary filmmaker Zak Bagans, who says he had an encounter of the ghostly kind some six years ago, along with those of his cohorts Nick Groff and Aaron Goodwind.

Each week they are locked overnight in a haunted location. Bagans antagonizes and berates spirits to get evidence.

"What is really interesting about 'Ghost Adventures' is that it is driven by these three personalities who are impassioned insiders," says Travel's senior vice president of content, Michael Klein. "When they are investigating and searching for answers, their curiosity comes from a real place of truth inside of them, and that resonates with the audience."