Hearing From Dearly Departed Proves a Hit on Sci-Fi Channel

The talk show format has been done to death--literally. In the last few years, the list of name-talent hosts who have passed on to the talk-show graveyard is long, from “Donny and Marie,” “The Howie Mandel Show” and “The Magic Hour” to “The Roseanne Show” and “The Martin Short Show.” But before anyone plays the death knell of the genre, a totally new twist has breathed life into it. The format is simple: A noncelebrity host communicates with guests who have “crossed over”--in other words, are dead. He then relays their messages to their living loved ones in the studio audience.

No booking wars here. The Sci-Fi Channel’s “Crossing Over With John Edward” is a hit and is one of the cable network’s first entrees into nonscripted programming. The half-hour show can be seen Sunday through Thursday, with the Sunday installment an hour version of the show. Since premiering in July last year, “Crossing Over” has boosted ratings 33% over the same time period the previous year, to a daily average of 533,000 households. Perhaps more importantly, the show is attracting more female viewers to the traditionally male-skewing Sci-Fi Channel. While women generally make up 45% of Sci-Fi’s audience, “Crossing Over’s” audience is 60% women.

The sudden success has come as a shock to everyone involved. Well, not exactly everyone.

“I’m not shocked,” says John Edward, the psychic medium namesake of the show. “I know what peoples’ interests are.” He notes that, in general, people are “developing a new sense of spiritual understanding universally.”

At 31, the no-nonsense host doesn’t fit the stereotype of a psychic medium. (A psychic medium is someone who allegedly can predict the future and may see things from the past. A psychic becomes a medium when the spirits communicate through the psychic.) The New York native comports himself as a regular guy who lives on Long Island with his wife.

When Edward hosts the show, he stands in front of the audience and with no fanfare or props--like Tarot cards or crystals--starts communicating with the dead family and friends of audience members. He determines who the information is meant for by where the energy is pulling him in the audience and by the “facts” that the dead are giving him to validate their presence.

These details often sound downright bizarre to the viewer, such as “I’m getting a Devil Dog connection here,” or “Do you have a part of her body with you?” but often cause the recipient to dissolve in emotion, believing that the only way Edward would have this information is if their dead loved one is supplying it. Yet, Edward never chokes up or betrays a trace of sentimentality as he delivers information rapid-fire. He’s like a psychic short-order cook, barking out personal messages then moving on to the next person. Put plainly, there’s nothing remotely warm and fuzzy about the guy and that’s the way he likes it.

‘What Would I Want to Hear?’

“I read people as if I were the person being read,” explains Edward. “My whole focus is, what would I want to hear? I know that everybody wants to hear that their [loved ones] are OK and they love them and that they’re with them and all that mushy-gushy new age [nonsense] but that’s not me. As a medium, my job is to validate [the spirit’s] presence, and the only way that I can do that is with facts. I’m not paying attention to what I’m saying. I’m literally playing psychic charades. I see, hear, feel it and interpret it. It’s very draining but very rewarding.”

Edward maintains there are no differences between doing televised readings or doing group or private readings that aren’t aired. He prepares the same way by meditating and praying before he begins. Edward says regardless of the venue, it’s all the same for him.

But for the spirits, it’s not. Some are private and just don’t like the limelight.

“If somebody has a family member who was in life shy or whose family doesn’t want them to disclose a lot of their business, it’s not going to happen,” he says.

But apparently, plenty of spirits do not suffer from stage fright. In perhaps his most compelling reading on the show, Edward continued to point to the back of the studio, saying that a male figure to the side (brother, friend, cousin) was coming through who passed in a car accident or in an impact and that there was somebody connected with a name that sounded like “Tony.” In addition, he said, “There’s like a Rick, there’s a Rich, there’s some type of R connection. There’s an educational feeling to this, like somebody’s the teacher, they’re known as the teacher. There is a 16 connection to this and there’s a falls, something falls.”

The women in the back row insisted the information made no sense to them, but Edward would not relent, saying that the energy pulling him was in the back, where the women were. Finally, a staff member from the show went outside to the parking garage behind the studio where Edward was pointing. There he found a parking attendant and brought the man back to the studio. The surprised man explained that when he was a teacher in his homeland of Jamaica, his 16-year-old brother, Rich, was killed in an automobile accident while riding his bicycle. The man also said that they have another brother named Tonto. And the family was connected to Dunn’s River Falls, an area in Jamaica.

A Response to the Scoffers

It’s just this sort of reading that attracts viewers. For those who scoff at the idea of being able to communicate with the dead in general and specifically with Edward’s ability, Edward shoots back: “If they don’t have a belief with them, that’s fine. I’m not that ambitious. It’s not my job to help develop one for them.”

And why should he? He’s done quite well with those who do believe, as a successful lecturer who does both group and private readings. In addition, he is also an author of two books, “One Last Time,” published in 1998, and his first novel, “What If God Were the Sun?” last year. All this from a guy who up until 1995 was working in a hospital full-time in the information systems department.

Since childhood, Edward has had otherworldly experiences that only intensified as he got older. After years of studying and honing his abilities, the other world won out and Edward chose to focus on working as a psychic medium full-time. A minor celebrity on the East Coast, Edward also does radio appearances and makes the talk show circuit, having appeared on “Sally Jesse Raphael,” “Maury,” “Live with Regis,” “Larry King Live,” and “The Today Show.”

Edward’s road to the small screen took off in 1997 when he called a Los Angeles-based producer for “Leeza” about appearing on the show. That producer was Ramey Warren Black and the two quickly became friends. When Edward and Black met face to face months later in Los Angeles, Edward did a reading of Black that she describes as “the most profound experience that I’ve ever had.” Around the same time, Black had joined with friend Adora English to form their own production company, Media-Savvy, of which they are co-presidents. Currently the two, along with Jean Wiegman, are executive consultants to the New York-based “Crossing Over.”

Although Black and English were confident that “Crossing Over” had potential, when they shopped the concept of a guy who talks to dead people around town, they had their work cut out for them. It wasn’t easy convincing development executives that “Crossing Over” would work--it’s tough enough for a talk show to make it when the guests are breathing.

“We kept hearing, ‘Why do people care?’ ” says Black. “I said because they’re compelling stories that deliver comfort and hope. Why do we watch any other show? Because we want to see the stories and how they unfold from a different side.”

And it is just that message of hope and comfort, coupled with Edward’s style, that sold executives at Sci-Fi who took the plunge where syndicators had feared to go. After seeing a tape of Edward, Bonnie Hammer, executive vice president and general manager of the Sci-Fi Channel, saw potential but wanted to experience Edward’s abilities firsthand, so she attended one of his group readings in Long Island anonymously and ended up getting a reading.

“I was totally blown away,” says Hammer. “I came back and we decided we really wanted to close the deal with this guy.” As odd a match as it may seem, a network known more for aliens and vampires than for inspirational programming, in Hammer’s eyes, “Crossing Over” was just what the cable network needed. “We wanted people to see Sci-Fi as not just a channel with new and old fiction, but also a channel that is accessible to people today. Even though [‘Crossing Over’] qualifies, in a sense, as science fiction because it is speculative, it touches human beings’ lives, it gives them a form of affirmation. And, in its own way, it’s dramatic soap stories.”

And now that the show is a hit, Sci-Fi’s sister company, Studios USA, is planning to take the show to the next level by bringing it to the syndicated marketplace.

Similar Shows May Be in Works

The show will continue to be shown on Sci-Fi as well. But will “Crossing Over’s” success spawn a spate of knockoff psychic shows? Bill Carroll, vice president and director of programming for Katz Television Group, which advises stations on programming decisions, says that it’s a distinct possibility.

“Any time anything is successful, in the entertainment business, the greatest compliment seems to be that we just repeat the same thing over and over and over again until we kill it.” Carroll cites the many court shows that followed the success of “Judge Judy,” although, he adds, few of those shows will make it beyond their first season.

“TV shows are really based on the strength of the individual who’s the center of the show,” continues Carroll. “And I think with John Edward, it’s probably been just the right place, right time, right person because there’s a greater acceptance in the general public to the possibility of this [psychic phenomenon] being real. And if there are skeptics, they’re willing to accept it as entertainment.”

Entertainment aside, Edward says his role is that of a teacher, showing people that love never dies, that their loved ones are still a part of their lives and that everyone has untapped psychic ability. Originally, Edward thought of doing a radio show because he could do readings for callers, but no one would see him. He felt that way, people would focus on the message, not the messenger. But being on television has put an end to any hopes of anonymity.

“I’ve never wanted to be famous,” says Edward. “It’s hard when somebody stops you in a restaurant and looks at you and you’re trying to have your own private time and they’re going, ‘Is my mom standing behind me?’ Or they say, ‘There goes that freak.’ ” But that “freak” has succeeded on an exceedingly competitive playing field. And industry insiders say that due to “Crossing Over’s” popularity, psychics are pitching themselves as hosts for TV shows with great vigor, hoping they will be the next John Edward.

* “Crossing Over” can be seen Sundays at 8 p.m. and Mondays-Thursdays at 11 p.m. on the Sci-Fi Channel.