Smallscreen

How do we deal with a surfeit of choice? By narrowing down our selection to the comfort of around seven favourites from which we rarely stray. Thus we typically cook no more than about seven recipes. We usually buy goods in six or seven shops. And we tend to watch no more than seven television channels from the hundreds on offer (not to mention BBC iPlayer, 4OD, ITV.com and the US online video service, Hulu, shortly to launch here). But while our normal channels are playing summer repeats (Waking the Dead on BBC1, Diana Dors and Kenny Everett documentaries on ITV, Skins on Channel 4) do you ever explore the further reaches of the satellite channels? This week Smallscreen, for one month only, boldly goes there for you.

Kelvin MacKenzie, the former editor of The Sun, did not have much time for the occult. When he felt it time to replace his newspaper's astrologer he is said to have written a letter that began, "As you will no doubt have foreseen…" What on earth would MacKenzie make of Tony Stockwell's Psychic Academy on Bio (the Biography Channel), currently broadcast at 9pm on Thursday evenings? They claim it as the series in which "world renowned psychic Tony Stockwell takes six members of the public on an amazing spiritual journey to unlock their psychic powers." It's an attempt to build ratings for a channel whose average audience would fit comfortably into a first division football ground. And there is a precedent: when Richard Woolfe, the current programme boss of Five, ran the Living Channel he boosted its ratings by 60 per cent one year by introducing a number of similar psychic adventures.

In the case of Bio, was anyone watching? More than usual: the first programme of the series got a rating of around 50,000, and that's not counting spectral viewers who tuned in from "the other side." To its shame, the audience measurement system, Barb, doesn't yet gauge the spiritual audience, but admittedly they may be of limited interest to advertisers. Stockwell makes the promise that during the series, members of the public will be taught how to talk to the dead. But first they must be selected—familiar reality television territory here. Falling by the wayside were Mr Magnet, a divorced father of three whose "hot hands" failed to impress Stockwell; Alyson, a member of a "paranormal investigation unit"; and window salesman, Granville Corker. Six people were eventually selected as having the potential to be the winning psychic apprentice. Among them are Helena, Granville's fiancée, who had only come along to hold his hand and Jenna: "I had a car accident where I hit a bridge… lost my job, lost my house, so I moved in with a Tarot card reader." As you do.

Tony Stockwell has the easy manner of a practised salesman and a glassy smile to match. His stock phrase to his psychic students and to congregations in spiritualist churches is, "You see that," uttered more as a statement than a question. And they do see it: the future in crystal balls, the past in tea leaves and Tarot cards, ghosts in pubs and—genuinely distressingly—a deceased baby speaking through a shifting table. At one point Tony cautions his team: "This is not a guessing game." But to the viewer that is exactly what it is. Mediums are well equipped with emotional intelligence and a box of conversational gambits that revolve around names, ages and family relationships. Witness Tony's encounter with Claire, one of the would-be apprentices. He says he has a grandfather connecting from the spirit world (a good bet, most of us have two of them). Claire confirms she had one. Was he one of a number of boys? She doesn't know—Tony closes in on that one. Was there a distance between dad and granddad? Yes there was. Was he called George? Claire doesn't know. Well, the granddad would like to apologise to her dad for abandoning him. Tony now sees fostering or adoption; Claire confirms her father was brought up in a children's home. Later she quizzes her father and he confirms the story. This appears to be no more than the excavation of a relatively common trauma by acute questioning. But he was called George. A lucky guess or divine intervention? You decide.

If Stockwell appeals, you can of course buy his books and CDs from his website, or see him on his British tour in the autumn. And even if you regard Psychic Academy as the mostly benign exploitation of the needy, credulous and superstitious you may still marvel at its adroitness. Programmes like this are obvious tosh and would never be allowed on the main channels, but I would defend to the death Bio's right to produce it. And import it too—coming soon is an American series about a dwarf medium called Small Medium At Large. To quote Kelvin MacKenzie once more—"you couldn't make it up."