For more than a decade, I worked in interactive psychic television, presenting, producing and training talent at Psychic Today and Psychic Interactive. At the time, television and premium-rate phone lines were one of the main ways a psychic could reach a large audience. Viewers would watch a psychic on television, get to know their personality and the way they worked, perhaps watch them give readings to other callers and, if they connected with them, pick up the phone and have a private reading themselves.
When I started properly looking at what was happening on TikTok LIVE, I couldn't help thinking that I had seen this somewhere before.
The technology is completely different, of course, but the human behaviour underneath it really isn't. People still want instant access to psychics. They still want to ask questions, watch readings, find someone they connect with and receive guidance in the moment. The difference is that instead of watching television with a phone in their hand, the television, phone line and psychic are now potentially all sitting inside the same device.
So it got me thinking. Are psychic phone lines actually dying, or has the instant psychic reading simply found a new home?
The Old Psychic TV World Was More Regulated Than People May Realise
People sometimes remember psychic television as a slightly wild world of tarot cards, phone-ins and late-night TV, but behind the scenes it was still broadcasting and there were rules about what we could and couldn't do.
Psychic broadcasting in the UK operated within a regulated environment. Ofcom's Broadcasting Code places restrictions around demonstrations of the paranormal, occult and divination. Crucially, these broadcasts must not contain individual “life-changing advice”, which includes direct advice someone could reasonably act on in areas such as health, finance, employment or relationships.
As a producer and presenter, those boundaries were simply part of the job. There were things we couldn't say, questions that couldn't be answered in certain ways and subjects where you needed to be extremely careful. There were producers, compliance considerations and a broadcasting environment sitting between the psychic and the person watching at home.
The phone-paid side was regulated too, and it still is. Ofcom took over the day-to-day regulation of premium-rate services in 2025, with requirements covering areas including transparency, fairness, customer care, vulnerable consumers and the prevention of harm.
TikTok LIVE is a very different world.
Now Almost Anyone Can Have Their Own Psychic TV Show
One of the things I find fascinating about TikTok LIVE is how many of the barriers that existed in traditional broadcasting have simply disappeared. A psychic no longer needs to be auditioned by a television company, travel to a studio, work with a producer or be given a slot in somebody else's schedule. If they have access to LIVE, they can potentially pick up their phone, press a button and start broadcasting.
For somebody like me who came from television, that is actually quite extraordinary. A Medium sitting at home in Manchester can be speaking directly to people around the country, or much further afield, within minutes. People can ask questions in the comments, watch readings happening in real time, follow the creator, send gifts and come back to see them again.
In some ways, TikTok has taken the old interactive television model and handed the studio directly to the practitioner.
There is enormous opportunity in that, but there is also something about it that makes me slightly uncomfortable.
Where Did The Producer Go?
TikTok isn't an unregulated platform. It has Community Guidelines that apply to everyone using the platform, including rules covering harmful misinformation and other potentially harmful content. TikTok also says it can remove content, ban accounts and restrict access to features such as livestreaming when its rules are broken.
But there is obviously a big difference between broadcasting from your bedroom onto a global social platform and working within a television production where producers and compliance processes are sitting around you.
Spend enough time looking through spiritual TikTok and you will find conversations covering almost everything. Pregnancy, health, relationships, bereavement, predictions, spirit communication, witchcraft, the occult and major decisions about people's lives all come up. The fact that something appears on TikTok doesn't necessarily mean it complies with TikTok's rules, but the sheer volume and immediacy of the content makes it feel like a completely different world from the one many established psychics were trained to work within.
I can completely understand why somebody who has spent 20 or 30 years working professionally as a psychic or Medium might look at some of this and think, “TikTok is absolutely not for me.”
Actually, when I first started looking at it properly, parts of it made me feel the same way.
But then I started thinking about the alternative.
If You Don't Like What You're Seeing, Should You Stay Away?
There are some incredibly experienced psychics, Mediums, Astrologers and spiritual practitioners in the UK who have spent decades developing what they do. Many of them have worked with thousands of clients, understand professional boundaries, know how to communicate with somebody who may be vulnerable and, perhaps most importantly, know when not to answer something.
A lot of these people aren't natural social media users. Some aren't interested in becoming influencers and have no desire to spend their lives making little videos about themselves. I completely understand that.
But if all of the experienced, ethical people look at TikTok and decide they don't like it, who fills the space they leave behind?
That is where my thinking about this has really changed. Maybe it isn't quite “if you can't beat them, join them”, because I don't think anybody should copy practices they don't agree with just because they perform well online. Perhaps it is more a case of: if you believe the standard should be higher, you have to be prepared to be part of raising it.
You don't have to become the loudest person on TikTok. You don't need to make outrageous predictions or frighten people into believing they need a reading. You don't have to suddenly transform yourself into an influencer. But you may need to become comfortable with being visible.
Has The Business Model Changed Too?
This is where I think the comparison with the old psychic phone-line model becomes really interesting.
The old customer journey was essentially television programme, psychic demonstration, viewer builds trust and then calls for a private reading. The television programme was doing far more than entertaining people. It was introducing practitioners to potential clients and allowing viewers to get to know them before spending money with them.
TikTok can now perform a very similar role. Someone might discover a psychic through a short video, find them on LIVE, watch them for half an hour, ask a question, follow them and return several times. They might then join that creator's community or eventually book a private reading.
The difference is that there are now far more places that relationship can go. A creator may receive eligible gifts during a LIVE, offer subscriptions, sell digital products or courses, run events, build a membership, offer private services or work with relevant brands. A professional psychic who previously relied primarily on one-to-one readings can potentially build an entire business around the audience they are developing.
And phone-paid services themselves certainly haven't disappeared. Ofcom says phone payment is still used by around 20 million people in the UK and specifically includes chat, advice and horoscope services among the types of services that can be charged through a phone bill.
So perhaps this isn't really a story about TikTok killing the psychic phone line at all.
Perhaps what is changing is the beginning of the customer journey.
The Psychic Can Now Become The Channel
For me, this is probably the biggest difference between the two eras.
When I worked in psychic television, the broadcaster owned the channel and largely controlled access to the audience. A psychic could become incredibly popular, but ultimately they were appearing on somebody else's television station.
Today, the psychic can effectively become their own channel. Their personality becomes part of the programme, their followers become the returning audience and their LIVE can become a regular show that people actively choose to come back to.
That gives practitioners a level of independence we simply didn't have in the old television model, and I think that is incredibly exciting. But independence comes with responsibility too. There isn't necessarily going to be a producer sitting next to you telling you that something shouldn't be answered, that a claim has gone too far or that a viewer needs to be handled carefully.
In many ways, the modern spiritual creator has to learn to become their own presenter, producer and compliance department.
So, Should Psychics Be On TikTok LIVE?
I don't think TikTok LIVE is right for everybody, but I do think there is a bigger question that psychics, therapists, coaches and other independent practitioners need to start asking themselves. If more of the way people discover and choose who they want to work with is moving towards social media, video and LIVE broadcasting, what happens to the small businesses that aren't there?
For years, having a good website, recommendations and perhaps a Facebook or Instagram page could be enough for many independent practitioners. But the way people decide who they trust is changing. We increasingly want to see the person behind the business. We want to hear them speak, understand how they think, experience their personality and get a sense of whether we connect with them before we ever consider paying for their services.
That is where video, and particularly LIVE video, becomes incredibly powerful. A photograph and a paragraph about your qualifications can tell me that you are experienced, but twenty minutes watching you talk about something you genuinely understand can show me. I can hear your knowledge, see how you communicate, watch how you respond to questions and begin to decide whether I trust you.
For psychics and spiritual practitioners, where the personal connection between practitioner and client can be particularly important, that matters enormously.
So perhaps the bigger risk isn't getting onto TikTok and discovering that LIVE isn't for you. Perhaps the bigger risk is waiting another three or four years while consumer behaviour continues to change and discovering that the businesses and practitioners who embraced video, LIVE streaming and community building have developed relationships with the audiences you were hoping to reach.
That doesn't mean chasing every social media trend or trying to become an influencer. I don't believe small business owners should spend their lives dancing for an algorithm. But I do think experts need to understand that broadcasting is becoming part of modern business communication.
If you have spent ten, twenty or thirty years becoming brilliant at what you do, learning how to communicate that expertise through video and LIVE may now be just as important as learning how to build a website was twenty years ago.
The question may no longer be simply, “Do I want to be on TikTok?”
It might be, “If this is where my future customers are increasingly discovering people they trust, what happens to my business if I'm not?”
I Never Thought I Would Be Back In Interactive Broadcasting
There is something slightly surreal about all of this for me personally because I genuinely never thought I would find myself back in the world of interactive psychic broadcasting.
I had done that chapter. I spent more than a decade in psychic television and then my career moved in completely different directions through therapy, metaphysics, personal development and business. I certainly wasn't sitting around thinking that one day I would return to developing psychic broadcasters.
Then I started looking properly at TikTok LIVE and realised that so much of the knowledge I had from those years was suddenly relevant again.
I also started thinking about all of the brilliant people I had worked with over the years. The psychics, Mediums and practitioners who weren't necessarily the loudest people in the room or naturally brilliant at promoting themselves, but who had extraordinary knowledge, experience and talent. There are so many people like that who are almost invisible online while people with considerably less experience are building enormous audiences.
That is ultimately why I created The Conscious Creator Network.
I wanted to support some of that often unseen talent to understand this new broadcasting world, get onto TikTok, communicate what they do confidently, offer their services to a much wider audience and use that visibility to grow the businesses they have often spent years building.
I don't think the answer is to turn great psychics into influencers. I think it is to give great psychics, spiritual practitioners, therapists, coaches and wellbeing experts the broadcasting and business skills to thrive in the world we are now living in.
So, are psychic phone lines dead? I don't think they are.
I think the way people discover, connect with and eventually pay for psychic services is evolving.
Twenty years ago, people sat at home watching psychics on television and picked up the phone when they wanted to connect with them.
Today, they're already holding the phone.
And that might be the biggest change of all.
Want To Find Out How We Help?
If you're a psychic, spiritual or wellbeing expert and you're curious about TikTok LIVE but don't know where to start, The Conscious Creator Network is free to join. We help our creators develop their LIVE broadcasting, build their authority and community, understand monetisation and create a wider business funnel around the audience they are growing.
There is no joining fee and we don't take commission from your TikTok LIVE earnings. TikTok pays The Conscious Creator Network directly to support and develop creators in our network.
Discover how The Conscious Creator Network supports creators
Claire Anstey
Founder, The Conscious Creator Network
Broadcaster | Therapist | Creator Trainer