He's the Daddy

US television has taken reality TV to new extremes with plans for a show where adopted children will have to pick their biological fathers from a line

10:53 16 December 2004

US television has taken reality TV to new extremes with plans for a show where adopted children will have to pick their biological fathers from a line-up.

Who's Your Daddy? is the latest in a long line of shows designed to shock from Fox TV, following in the footsteps of The Littlest Groom - a form of Blind Date for dwarves - and plastic surgery makeover show The Swan.

In the latest offering, women who have never met their fathers will get the chance to be reunited and win 50,000 at the same time, assuming they can correctly spot their real dad.

If the woman picks one of the seven imposters then she will lose the cash, which will instead go to the man who convinced her he was her father.

But the plans have caused outrage among adoption agencies, who have termed the show "inappropriate" and "exploitative".

"It's horrible," said Dr Vincent Berger, executive director of a Pennsylvania adoption services.

"Talk about exploitative; they're making a game out of something that should be very meaningful, very intimate and very personal."

Felicity Collier, chief executive of the British Association for Adoption and Fostering, added: "It is totally inappropriate.

"Any child who does not have contact with their birth parents will harbour all sorts of hopes and fantasies about them. To meet their father in this way for the first time can only cause stress to someone who is already vulnerable."

The show's producers found the contestants by contacting adoption agencies and reuniting willing women with their natural fathers, who had also expressed a desire to meet their daughters.