What gets me about those shows is that they always find some “evidence” of a haunting within minutes of starting off. We never seem to see them sitting around night after night saying “Nope, nothing happening here.”
It's not just ghost shows, cryptozoology has Mountain Monsters where a group of fat, hairy, hillbilly types hunt down various cryptids.
It usually begins with the group in a pick-up truck discussing how their latest quarry (it usually has some name like The Howlin’ Hairy Hoghumper of Poontang County) is the most dangerous beast they’ve ever hunted.
Then they’ll meet a witness for a chat and off they go for their first night’s hunting. These expert trappers then make so much noise yelling at each other that any animal within twenty miles could hear them. But within minutes, they’ll hear a branch rustling or twigs snapping. That will cause more shouting, waving guns and at least one of them will fall over. They will all get a clear view of the beast – apart from the viewer because it never occurs to the camera team to get exclusive footage of the elusive beast, they’d rather film hairy rednecks shouting and falling over.
Next day, they will meet with more witnesses who will usually have photographic evidence. At the sight of a blurred image, the team will gasp in amazement and claim it’s the best evidence they have ever seen.
That’s a signal for two other members of the team to appear – Bill the trap builder and Wild Bill who seems to talk in his own language, a sort of hillbilly gibberish with occasional words that can be recognised – usually referring to him being an ex-marine.
Anyway, Bill sets to work on a trap to catch the beast – Bill is a man who makes Wile E Coyote look like an amateur. Along with Wild Bill, he’ll build some massive and elaborate trap in the middle of nowhere and then the final night of the hunt begins.
Having interviewed two witnesses, the team conclude that the beast must be located between where the witnesses saw it and split into two. One group will then be hunted by the beast, the other team will rush to the rescue and then the beast will head off towards the trap.
When they reach the trap, they’ll be just too late and it will have been destroyed by the creature but that will be all the proof they need – no attempt to look for hair samples or anything like that. And off they go after the next beast.