How long do psychic show recording sessions last?

[Splurge]

Hello all, I've been lurking for about a week now so I thought it was about time I got on and posted something, so I thought what better way to start than with an appeal for information to people who know more than me?

I had the pleasure of watching "6ixth Sense with Colin Fry" earlier tonight. For those not familiar with this particular show, Mr Fry is a medium who, I believe, has much in common with the more famous John Edward. I apologise for the horrendous crime of replacing the initial letter "S" with the numeral "6" - alas, this is how it appears in the original. Anyway, I noticed that in the course of the half-hour they televised, he performed only three readings, which seemed to vary between reasonably and very accurate.

My question is this... has anyone actually been to a recording of a "psychic show", and if so, how does what is done on the night compare to what is televised, in terms of both length and accuracy? Do we get to see a fair sample of the medium's average performance, do they show only his/her most accurate work, or (being television) do they just show the ones where the audience cry the most?

Many thanks,
Splurge

[jallenecs]

I recently recall watching some show or another (forgive me for not remembering) that was talking about that. Apparently, the taping (of the John Edwards show, if I recall) ran something like two hours, which was edited down to half an hour.

According to the narrator, only the hits/successful readings made it past the director and editor.

The cameraman and a reporter were stopping people outside a JVP show after the taping, and asking, how was the reading. The answers were "I wasn't convinced before I went in, and I'm still not convinced." Apparently, the pre-editing show was not that impressive.

Durn it, I am going to have to go hunting, to find the name of that show!

[SteveGrenard]

Having attended a taping of JE, I can state with absolute certainty that a single taping session lasted from 11 AM (start) to 3 PM or 4 hours.

However they do not make a single show from this taping, they make a number of shows so it is difficult to put a precise ratio of taping time to aired time. After this taping one of the producers thought...which means he was just estimating, that they would make 6 to 8 22 minute shows from this 4 hour session but it couldve been more, and it could've been less. It depends on how much of a particular reading and continuity.
In the U.S. a standard 30-minute show segment is actually 22 minutes, the other 8 minutes allow for commercial and station breaks. Even if they made the maximum number of shows, 8, this would have been 172 minutes of air time versus 240 minutes of continuous taping by up to 8 cameras. So they have a lot of coverage and a lot of breaks and periods of dead air are obviously edited out of the final cut.
There is considerable debate that such shows are edited and even faked to make the medium look like he is getting everything right and nothing wrong.
I did not see that that day or in segments which subsequently aired except for one reading which Edward spent 45 minutes on with two women who claimed they didnt know what he was talking about and then after over half an hour decided that yes, he was saying valid things. The rest of the readings were good and not like this. I am not sure Edward, however, is not cold reading as even though he protests and says don't give me any information he ends up asking an awful lot of questions in his conversations with the audience

[Luke T.]

I've spent a lot of time debating people who believe in John Edward. Many of them have been to tapings. What Steve said is pretty much what they all say. Several hours of taping chopped up into four or five shows.

I've only watched Crossing Over a few times this season. And those shows are quite different from the past. The audience is larger, and the actual time spent talking to a sitter is way down. A couple minutes in each half hour. And his cold reading skills are really getting frayed. Most of the shows seems to be sappy film clips of the departed or their family. In other words, lots and lots of filler.

[SteveGrenard]

Luke, we don't need to take Paul Shavelsons word for the fact they cut a single taping into multiple shows. This is readily apparent by watching the program over a period of days and weeks. You will see the same audience members, with the same clothes on, in the same seats but with different readings being shown. I dont watch the show anymore so I don't know what is being done as of late but yes, follow-ups and out of studio location segments take up even more time.

Of course, as I said, if you do the math:

Maximum #of shows = 8

Air time of each less commercial and station breaks = 22 mins

8 x 22 = 176 mins

4 hrs of taping X 60 = 240 mins of taping

240 less 176 = 64 mins unaccounted for

JE takes about 4 X 1 to 2 minute water breaks (not televised) and one or two make up touch-ups (on stage but not televised). He also on occasion gets hung up with a reading such as the one I described above. Although he seems like he is talking incessantly on air I saw several lengthy pauses in his spiel when viewing him in person.

And if they churn out fewer segments, from a single 4 hr taping then the amount of time unaccounted for will go up.

[CFLarsen]

Steve,

Ah, yes, been here, done that. Many questions never answered.

One of them: The discrepancy between the length of a reading and the length of a reading when shown on TV.

What we have managed to uncover, is the fact that the show does not consist of 22 minutes of readings, but only about half that (according to Luke, this has even gone down). But 11 minutes, fine.

The claim is still, that no content of a reading is ever cut out. We may be fooled into thinking that a reading goes smoothly, which we know, e.g. from Steve Grenard's own admissions, that it does not - up to 93% of a reading can end up on the cutting floor. But the claim is that what is cut out is "dead air".

Right.

However, since no "content" is cut out, it follows that no reading is ever more than 11 minutes long. Now, we have also heard (from neofight) that a reading with "full content" - no dead air - can, indeed, be longer than 11 minutes.

It's simply a matter of logic:

Claims:

No reading is ever edited for content.
A reading full of content can last longer than 11 minutes.


Fact:

No reading shown on "Crossing Over" is ever more than 11 minutes.


Care to explain that one? Steve? Neofight? Clancie? Anybody??

[Iamme]

If Bush conducted a televised show the way John Edward does...we would have a name for it: Propaganda!