Reality show asks adopted woman 'who's your daddy?'

A young woman given up for adoption as a child will try to pick her long-lost biological father from a lineup of impostors - and win US$100,000 ($143,000) - on a new US programme called Who's Your Daddy?

Despite the prize money and provocative title, the 90-minute special set to air on January 3 on the US Fox network is touted by its creators as an emotional "five-hanky show" with a happy ending that left even hardened Hollywood stagehands misty-eyed.

"If you watch the show, it's going to be impossible for you not to get choked up," said one of the executive producers, Kevin Healey. "We had Teamsters on our set that were crying."

The show is the latest in a parade of over-the-top reality concepts brought to prime time by Fox in recent months in hopes of repeating the success the network had with hits like Joe Millionaire and American Idol.

Six episodes with six different reunions have been filmed, with just one scheduled for broadcast so far. The casting process helped bring together about three dozen sets of adoptees and birth parents who had been searching for one another, the producers said.

"The dads wanted to find their daughters, and the daughters wanted to find their dads. All of them were pitched the concept well in advance of coming on the show," Healey said. "We had to get permission from both parties before anyone's contacted."

Casting began with radio spots in several cities across the country inviting adoptees interested in the idea of meeting their birth parents on a TV show to contact the producers. The casting teams then tracked down contestants' biological parents with the help of agencies that specialise in such reunions.

Healey said the Fox special was a format that blended the deception of such game-show classics as What's My Line and To Tell the Truth with the tear-jerking sentimentality common on such modern daytime programmes as Oprah.

The show opens with the woman being introduced to a panel of eight men, one of whom is her real father. Through three elimination rounds of questioning, the seven others do their best to fool her into thinking they are her true dads.

The daughter can walk away with up to $100,000 if she guesses right. Otherwise, the jackpot goes to the impostor.

The producers insist the money is merely designed to give the show an added twist and keep the impostors interested in doing their best to deceive the daughter.

"The people who are on the show are not there for the money. They're there to meet their dad," said Healey's partner, Scott Hallock.

- REUTERS