Show of the week: Long Island Medium

Long Island Medium has fared well on Discovery’s female-skewing Lifetime channel in the US and with over 70 episodes for buyers, Discovery Enterprises International spent much of the summer pushing it after launching it at NATPE Budapest.

“It’s one of the shows that’s been successful around the world,” says Saevar Lemke, DEI’s regional sales director, EMEA. “There have been many paranormal shows out there but this takes a different approach, it’s character driven and follows Theresa Caputo and has a reality aspect as we see her and her family as well as her as a psychic with the ability to speak to dead people. Unlike other shows that seek to explain the paranormal, the point here is we see her daily life with that reality component.”

DEI is different from other distributors in that it has to evaluate where and when it will roll out shows that have been hits on its domestic channels. In many cases it will want to debut them internationally on the international channels it operates.

“Our core business is pay TV, so we will often reserve our brand-defining shows for our own networks, however we will also look at maximising monetisation opportunities for these franchises on a case by case basis,” Lemke says. The show delivered 3.3 million viewers for the season three curtain raiser in the US and a 2.9 million average across the season in a competitive 9pm Sunday slot.

The show: Long Island Medium

The producer: Magilla Entertainment

The distributor: Discovery Enterprises International

The broadcaster: TLC

Concept: Paranormal reality show featuring larger than life US psychic Theresa Caputo