TV3 Psychics Live Discussion Thread 2 *** Read Post #1 ***

i cannot find porridge man on facebook link please

Monsieur Folie

Hayezer wrote: »

What is this 'private thread' I've read about? This show is absolutely hilarious, love when Flathan holds his Yu-Gi-Oh cards and points at the camera in dead silence.

Deleted User wrote: »

i want to see this thread also please

Our man in Havana wrote: »

Firstly invitations to the private thread are at my discretion. Do not ask on this thread. PM only if you have more than 500 posts and are not connected to Telemedia, TV3 or a journalist and have shown to be a trusted poster in this thread. If you are not granted access it is nothing personal.

If you want access you've to meet the criteria above and PM Our man in Havana. He said not to ask on this thread!

Can't wait for Flathan!

Dave!

Not arsed looking through the last few pages, but have ye seen Shane Hegarty's article in the Irish Times about this?

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2012/0630/1224319006987.html

Will TV3' s psychics stay on air? Only they can tell

SHANE HEGARTY

Sat, Jun 30, 2012

FOR A GUY powerful enough to foresee fires in people’s homes a year and a half from now, Flathan needs to focus his powers on himself for a change.

Who’s Flathan? If you hang on at the dregs of the TV night – post-Vincent Browne, pre-teleshopping, mid-insomnia – you will find him. He is in a mock wooden cabin. Hosting Psychic Readings Live on TV3. With an accent that is part Zsa Zsa Gabor, part eating-something-really-hot.

And when he shuffles his tarot cards the sound is loud enough to distract the late-bulletin newsreader on RTÉ.

If you call Flathan his awesome gift will tell you what will happen, what country you are going to, who you will go with, why you are going (the fire in one woman’s flat in a year and half’s time. Really). But Flathan has a weakness, a foe determined to take the shuffle out of his deck: the troll.

So Flathan and his TV3 colleagues Psychic Wayne and Countess Nadia Starella have been the subject of a recent hunt. Seemingly genuine people call in, at €2.44 a minute, for a “quick and accurate” reading live on TV3, only to then reveal their nefarious motives by shouting an obscenity, telling the psychic they’re talking rubbish or, in a famous exchange posted on YouTube, pretending to be Will Smith’s character in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

The psychics don’t, of course, see it coming nearly as clearly as you foresaw that obligatory didn’t-see-it-coming-psychics joke.

But there is sometimes a flicker of recognition a moment before someone metaphorically whips back their curtain. A hint of what’s to come, written in their faces rather than their cards, as the phone goes silent for a moment, as the caller’s voice rises an octave.

Any connoisseur of the Sky box will know that such programmes are commonplace down the channels where viewers wander only at night. This, however, is new to Irish television, but controversy around it will remind TV3 of a past life, when it ran Play TV in 2009 and 2010, before finally dropping it because of what it claimed were poor ratings – and not because the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland upheld numerous complaints against the show or because the phone-line regulator ordered that tens of thousands of euro be refunded to callers who had tried to solve misleading puzzles.

During that period TV3 claimed Play TV was all perfectly above board. “It is the most restricted TV programme out there. It answers to ComReg, RegTel and BAI and it went to air with their approval,” it said. It was, it turned out, perhaps the most deeply unfair quiz show Irish television has ever seen.

And now the BAI will likely once again find itself having to stay up past its bedtime. An exhaustive Boards.iethread, triggered by the original claims of a blogger, Alan Rice, sifted through the photographs of Psychic Readings Live’s available off-screen “psychics” and found it was using stock images. Mistique? Actually available to Germans with stock-shot needs. Psychic Cheryl? “A beautiful African American woman isolated on grass”. And so on.

According to posters on Boards.ie, some screen grabs were made before Psychic Readings Live removed the images from its website and replaced them with, in many cases, stock shots of planets aligning, tarot cards and the like. Claims of false advertising were made; contact numbers were included for anyone who wants to complain. One troll caller ended on that note: “They don’t have Play TV anymore so I can’t try and lose my money, okay. I’ll try and save it . . . I’ll be in touch with BAI soon.”

TV3 has said that it has no responsibility for Psychic Readings Live, that it is an infomercial, produced by a third party, and that it meets all of ComReg’s premium phone-line and broadcasting regulations. Its maker is Eso.tv, which also distances itself from the host broadcaster in its terms and conditions.

Eso.tvdescribes Psychic Readings Live as being “for entertainment purposes only” (although its best line in the terms and conditions is: “Neither the Producer nor the Broadcaster have any knowledge or psychic ability”).

While Twitter and Boards crackle with discussion about each night’s two-hour broadcast, it is a grim entertainment. The trolls are a tiny number of callers. The rest are gullible or desperate enough to call a TV psychic at premium rates. (The maximum allowable spend per call is €60.) And for information with all the validity of, well, a late-night psychic call-in show.

The only thing worth watching is how this plays out in coming months. Do TV3 and Psychic Readings Live have a future together? Will their relationship last? Or will it be spoiled by a mysterious caller? Someone shuffle that testcard.

Thwip!

Stuck Cone wrote: »

Irish Times article:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2012/0630/1224319006987.html

Well done to Alan for getting named. Good work young (although possibly older than me) man

rebel girl 15

Frantically trying to pack before this comes on!!

Is Flathan on for the whole show??

rebel girl 15

Monsieur Folie wrote: »

Yep, he was asking his loyal fans (me) on Facebook whether he should go for the glitter jumper or the purple one tonight in a Facebook status, I said glitter!

I'd agree with the glitter - didn't see his status up

Skid

rebel girl 15 wrote: »

Frantically trying to pack before this comes on!!

Is Flathan on for the whole show??

It's not on until 12.10, so you have an extra 10 minutes!

LizT

He asked on twitter too and posted a picture of him in the make up room. He has a tattoo on his chest.

im all set can of club orange and terrys chocolate orange

kate1610

I LOVE how one of the tags for this thread is 'it's flathan dahling!' Totally think he should be given his own show just for the comic value...maybe co hosting with vinny brown! :P

JamesReeves

Deleted User wrote: »

im all set can of club orange and terrys chocolate orange

yano the way I live like 5 mins away...any spare Terry's ,.... LOVE that chocolate, it's my favorite. :P

Skid

These people who lost their money in the Dubai Property scam - they should have rang Flathan.

rebel girl 15

Skid wrote: »

It's not on until 12.10, so you have an extra 10 minutes!

Pretty much done - just a few small bits to do

lizt wrote: »

He asked on twitter too and posted a picture of him in the make up room. He has a tattoo on his chest.

Just saw it! Class!

Deleted User wrote: »

im all set can of club orange and terrys chocolate orange

I've chocolate orange as well - half price in tesco!

cristoir

First time watching this in three days. Is it kinda weird that it feels good to be back?

Thwip!

cristoir wrote: »

First time watching this in three days. Is it kinda weird that it feels good to be back?

Thats how they get you


the petition only has 26 signatures....this saddens me

rebel girl 15

cristoir wrote: »

First time watching this in three days. Is it kinda weird that it feels good to be back?

Nope, I'm sad I'm gonna miss it for next week!

JamesReeves

JamesReeves wrote: »

yano the way I live like 5 mins away...any spare Terry's ,.... LOVE that chocolate, it's my favorite. :P

there only half left your more than welcome

jsemple

rebel girl 15 wrote: »

Nope, I'm sad I'm gonna miss it for next week!

You might not if you are willing to stay up. There was a guy streaming it on a website the other day so people outside the UK could watch. The thing had a chatroom too so might be good for people on here too.

They aren't doing it tonight but if I see them again I'll give links to people who want it via PM (can't post it on here)

jpcarlow

jpcarlow wrote: »

Thats how they get you


the petition only has 26 signatures....this saddens me

i signed it

cristoir

Just put the popcorn in the microwave. The packet says it'll do a family of 4 but if Sue is on i'll need the strength.

its flathvan daulings

cristoir

Excellent it's Flathan.

Monsieur Folie

He went with the glitter.

squonk

It is with the deepest regret and much sadness that I must report the absence of any form of luck eminating from the alleged lucky numbers I received from Flathan yesterday.

So unlucky were the numbers that they had not won any single prize even in prior lotto draws over the previous few weeks. In fact, one number was 68, so I subtracted 6 from 8 to produce 2. I checked if adding both numbers to produce 14 was actually the way to go but the result was the same.

Obviously the National Lottery are at fault here. One has to question just how 'random' these numbers coming from the draw drum are. There needs to be an enquiry launched into the workings of out Lottery management organization as Flathan is one of the top 50 psychics in the world and it's clear that his lucky numbers are to be trusted.

Unfortunately it's still looking like a desk job for me on Monday. Damn the lottery!!!

Thwip!

Deleted User wrote: »

i signed it

And this is why you and I get on so well tajd

rebel girl 15

hi Flathan dahling!

sue feck off with that heart card stay in your box

LizT

Sue, I think I speak for all viewers when I say

STOP HOLDING UP YOUR STUPID F*CKING HEART CARDS!!!

giftgrub1991

yey,but sue is still lurking on the horizon

rebel girl 15

That jacket looks much better on him than that shirt last night