Damn, and I thought Amercian TV was bad. I'm watching a show on TBS right now where they tracked down a dad in the US that his daughter in Japan hasn't seen or had contact with since she was a baby (I didn't see the whole show, so I'm not sure when the seperation happened). The whole climax came when they opened a door on stage that he may or may not have been behind. Thankfully he was. I wouldn't have wanted to see her absolutely crushed if he hadn't been.
I've seen some other shows like this before. I wonder how many of these cases were caused by the mother in Japan cutting off contact after the divorce.