Some shows are more sensationalist than others. ''Paternity tests are a little more serious than we go.'' ''Our show is more fun, more crazy,'' Ms. ''Our show is about outrageous relationships,'' said Linda Shafran, spokeswoman for ''The Jerry Springer Show.'' One recent show featured a psychic stripper who intuited a guest's secret fetish - wearing diapers. Neither does Jerry Springer, though for a different reason. Oprah Winfrey, who markets herself as a class act, does not do paternity test shows. ''If your daughter is 11-14 and you want DNA to determine who fathered her baby, call this number,'' a Jenny Jones ad instructed. ''Are you a young teen mother who needs a DNA test to prove he's your baby's daddy?'' a ''Montel Williams'' ad on the show asked recently. The talk shows recruit guests with on-air pitches. ''It's very easy to put on a condom and not be on a show like this.'' ''A lesson can be learned here,'' Jenny Jones recently told a teenage father cursing the positive results of his DNA paternity test. Many shows try to balance voyeuristic thrills with a public service message. Povich said, he gives guests a list of 10 possible secrets a spouse or child might reveal on the show.) (Ever since the ''Jenny Jones'' shooting, Mr. Guests are coached to express their feelings fully, but limit the violence to shoving. Surprise is a critical ingredient to a successful DNA paternity show, but producers say they carefully prepare guests for the possibility of bad news, and eliminate applicants who do not seem stable enough. The country has moved on, but the shows are still there, with some adjustments. Public concern about ''trash TV'' was so heated that it was even debated in Congress. Talk shows seemed to reach a nadir in the mid-1990's, when a guest on the ''Jenny Jones'' show killed another guest three days after their taping (the show was never broadcast). Williams - proved that he was indeed the father. The show's DNA test - ''99.99 percent accurate,'' according to Mr. Perhaps not surprisingly, given that most studies show that vasectomies are 97 to 99 percent effective, he had trouble believing his wife had remained faithful. A recent show on ''Montel Williams'' featured a man whose wife became pregnant after he had the surgery.
''It's the most life-altering thing you can do on television,'' explained Ricki Lake, who has done scores of paternity tests on her talk show. ''These are classic themes of betrayal, revenge, truth and the search for resolution,'' Mr. Perhaps jaded by a steady diet of husbands who seduce their wives' sisters, daytime television habitués appear to be fascinated by DNA testing's mix of sex and science-based retribution. New viewers may find paternity shows arresting and odd - a cross between a television game show and a PBS documentary on the disintegration of American families. DNA paternity testing has displaced wild-teen boot camp and infidelity lie-detector tests as the hottest genre on daytime television. Sweeps or not, on any given day, at least one talk-show host announces DNA results on the air before a studio audience that boos or cheers. Povich, Jenny Jones, Ricki Lake, Montel Williams and other talk-show hosts promote them especially hard during sweeps months, the periods when advertising rates are set. His former girlfriend Latoya flees the stage in tears, crushed that the DNA test did not prove that Tony was the father of her 4-month-old girl.ĭNA paternity tests are increasingly popular with viewers, which is the main reason Mr. ''Tony,'' the talk show host Maury Povich intones, his voice taut with suspense, ''is not the father!'' The young man leaps up and bounds across the stage like a contestant who has just won a car.