http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/showbiz/s/1052924_scariest_challenge_yet_for_yvette

Scariest challenge yet for Yvette Fielding of Most Haunted- the Paranormal Channel set to launch

Ian Wylie

6/ 6/2008



WHEN Yvette Fielding admits it's the scariest thing she's ever done, you'd better sit up and take notice.



The Most Haunted host and producer husband Karl Beattie have put up £1.1m of their own money to launch The Paranormal Channel.



Available on Sky and online from Monday, with plans to launch on cable and Freeview within six months, and ultimately across the world, they hope the new channel will become a favourite haunt for viewers.



"We haven't slept," says the Stockport-born former Blue Peter presenter. "At three in the morning, my eyes ding open and everything starts going through your head.



"Karl's just constantly awake and working through the night. So it's a bit more terrifying than doing the pilot of Most Haunted - which we put our life savings into.



" We just believe in the new channel so much. Fans have told us over the years that they want it but we've had so many false starts. It's a very nervous step to take and a big risk, but I think it's going to be worth taking it."



The Cheshire-based couple's Reddish production company Antix - soon to move to a new home near Media City in Salford - will make a high proportion of the original programming.



Executive producer and presenter Karl explains: "The Paranormal Channel is a light look at the dark side. We'll use drama, documentaries and even comedy to explore anything and everything that is unexplained. But viewers shouldn't underestimate the scariness rating."



Yvette adds: "We've bought all the series of Arthur C. Clarke, which people of my age and older will remember as kids and teenagers. Strange But True with Michael Aspel and lots of documentaries about UFOs, alien abduction and a drama called The Chosen.



"And then Antix Productions are making a show called Whines And Spirits, where Karl goes round Britain looking for the most haunted pub with a guest ghost investigator - a celebrity.



"We've also made a programme called Paul Ross's Big Black Book Of Horror, where Paul reads ghost stories to us every night. That's quite spooky.



Camper van



"Then new for the autumn is Three Screaming Banshees, an entertainment programme with myself, Lesley Smith and Cath Howe from Most Haunted. The three of us travel the country in a camper van, like Charlie's Angels, in search of very horrible, haunted, scary places."



Yvette and Karl are currently coming to the end of filming for series 11 of Most Haunted, which will continue on Living TV, with another series set to be shot in America this summer along with a live special.



Ghost Hunting With...also continues on ITV2, having already terrified the likes of Girls Aloud and Coronation Street stars.



An edition featuring The Happy Mondays is due to be screened in September.



"And the programme with Paul O'Grady in Italy is going out as a Christmas special. Both he and I were in tears. That was one of the most terrifying things I've ever done."



So what does Yvette have to say to the sceptics? "It's healthy to be a sceptic, but give it a go, try it. Don't just snob it away," she replies.



"We were on a location in Wales recently and there was a clock with a pendulum swinging on the mantlepiece, making a really loud ticking noise. And it had stopped.



"No-one was stood anywhere near it - we've got it on camera - and we were getting noises, as if somebody was in the room. I just said, `If you're here, start the clock, make the pendulum swing.' And the next thing it just started - tick, tock, tick, tock. Everybody went, `Whoah.' That was weird.



" For me, it was real. There's definitely life after death," Yvette adds.