psychic friends network

Ubiquitous 1990's late night TV infomercial phenomenon. PSN was a 1 900 number psychic service that charged astronomical per minute charges. Instead of merely hiring an actor to pose as a psychic and hawk services directly to a camera (see Miss Cleo), PSN employed past their prime entertainment personalities to "host" a casual roundtable discussion that persistently extolled the proficiency of the network psychics. PSN also used phone testimonials from shills to enhance a not so subtle peer pressure to dial the phone.

PSN's infomercial model proved very successful. Like Home Shopping Network and QVC, the creation of an artificial peer group to sell almost anything attracted many people with few social outlets.