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Miss America looking for new TV home
2007-03-30
For the second time in three years, Miss America is all dressed up and looking to attract a new television network, pageant organizers said on Friday. Country music cable channel CMT, which picked up the beauty contest and moved it to Las Vegas for two years after Miss America was dumped from its longtime home network, ABC, in 2004, said late on Thursday it was pulling the plug as well. The Nashville, Tennessee-based CMT informed Miss America's organizers this week it was declining its option to televise the 86-year-old event during any of the next four years, starting in 2008. No specific reason was given. But CMT general manager Brian Philips said his network was looking to build a programming slate of more original series and more music-centered specials. The pageant's ratings slump was another likely factor. CMT's live broadcast of the event fell from 3.1 million viewers in 2006 to 2.4 million in January of this year, when aspiring Broadway actress Lauren Nelson won the crown. ABC's last telecast of the pageant in 2004 also hit a ratings low, despite the introduction of skimpier swimsuits and other format changes aimed at boosting viewership. Miss America's organizers are in talks with several other networks to pick up the pageant and hope to have a deal in place soon, a spokeswoman told Reuters. She declined to elaborate. The Atlantic City, New Jersey-based pageant also said Emmy Award-winning TV producer Don Mischer would return as producer of the show next year. News that Miss America and CMT had parted ways came days after NBC announced it had renewed its deal with real estate mogul Donald Trump and the Miss Universe Organization to televise the Miss Universe and Miss USA pageants for three more years. A string of recent scandals have helped focus new attention on the pageant industry, most notably revelations of underage drinking that nearly cost troubled beauty queen Tara Conner her crown near the end of her reign as Miss USA. The Miss America pageant was first broadcast on live television in 1954, with Lee Meriwether, then a 19-year-old drama student from California who would later star on the "Barnaby Jones" TV series in the 1970s, being the first to cry tears of joy as the winning contestant.
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