UPN Proceeds with Amish in the City

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UPN plans to go ahead with reality show Amish in the City, despite the concerns of 51 members of Congress expressed in a recent letter to UPN parent company Viacom.

"We have total respect for what critics and Congressmen are saying," says Dawn Ostroff, UPN’s president of entertainment. "We have every intention of treating the Amish and their heritage with the utmost respect and decency."

Amish in the City is currently in production, Ostroff said, with casting ongoing. It will bring Amish youth who are unfamiliar with modern living to the city to live with urban youth and then chronicle what happens.

UPN has been revitalized this February with the return of America’s Next Top Model. As a result of the show, UPN is getting its best ratings ever on Tuesday nights and is one of only two networks—the other being sister network CBS—to show growth in viewers and across key adult demos this year in the February sweeps.

Paige Albiniak
Paige Albiniak

Contributing editor Paige Albiniak has been covering the business of television for more than 25 years. She is a longtime contributor to Next TV, Broadcasting + Cable and Multichannel News. She concurrently serves as editorial director for The Global Entertainment Marketing Academy of Arts & Sciences (G.E.M.A.). She has written for such publications as TVNewsCheck, The New York Post, Variety, CBS Watch and more. Albiniak was B+C’s Los Angeles bureau chief from September 2002 to 2004, and an associate editor covering Congress and lobbying for the magazine in Washington, D.C., from January 1997 - September 2002.