The End of the Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge

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I can't find any information about this on the wire services yet, but James Randi recently announced on the The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe (podcast #129), the end of the Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge, wherein he offered a million dollars to anyone who could demonstrate psychic or paranormal abilities in a formal test with mutually agreeable parameters. While he did say that JREF would be willing to administer the test in special cases for certain high-profile individuals if they should be interested, the general programme will be discontinued.

Among the reasons he gave for cancelling the programme were:

1. No high-profile psychics, like Sylvia Browne or John Edward, are willing to participate. The challenge is largely a media and PR exercise, but it's not really news if JREF manages to demonstrate that someone you've never heard of does not, in fact, have psychic abilities.
2. It is expensive to administer, because many people have attempted to claim the prize. While the candidates don't get very far in the testing, setting up an agreeable test in each case takes a lot of preparation. JREF long ago started farming out the initial testing to smaller skeptical groups, to cope with the workload. The effort also takes money, which could be used in other initiatives.
3. It's been ten years since he officially upped the reward to a million dollars, and that's a long time to spend on a programme that is not accomplishing its goal of influencing public perception.

I have mixed feelings about this cancellation. On the one hand, I have a strong rationalist leaning and have a lot in common with the skeptical movement. On the other, I agree that the challenge never really accomplished much, except to provoke hostility when Randi would publicly issue a challenge to some famous psychic, and they would predictably refuse. I would prefer it if JREF would dedicate its resources more toward public education about skepticism.