'Win a baby' on TV!

The reality TV craze has spawned shows offering desperate contestants the chance to win friends, husbands, plastic surgery and even divorces.

But a new programme is plumbing even more controversial depths, with couples competing to adopt a teenage mother's baby.

Be My Baby, hosted by respected journalist Barbara Walters, has sparked outrage across the US, where it is set to air tomorrow.

A 16-year-old mother, known only as Jessica, will listen to the 'pitches' of five couples desperate for a baby.

She will then decide which one gets to keep her child. 'I basically decide if they're going to have children or not,' she said. 'I kind of play God.'

Jessica was eight months' pregnant when filming began. She says she wanted to keep the child but her parents told her it would be too hard.

The show's publicists describe her as 'judge and jury' over the finalists, adding: 'Each couple has less than half an hour to convince Jessica they should be parents of her unborn son.' One of the competitors, Tab Brown, likened the format to TV dating shows.

'It's like The Bachelor - you're in or you're out tonight,' he said.

Another hopeful, Steve Strasser, said he found the show distasteful but his desperation to adopt made him take part. 'I hate to think about it but you're marketing yourself,' he added.

TV network ABC was deluged with complaints after it ran a trailer for the show during a news programme.

Radio journalist Jane Braverman said: 'It is an all-time low. How could a child be a prize in a show?'

ABC last night insisted that Be My Baby would be a serious report at the heartbreak of adoption.

Jennifer Marando, of A Child's Waiting, the adoption agency which is featured on the programme, said it was not a one-night game show.

'The producers shot a follow-up at the baptism,' she explained.