Miss America Splits Up with ABC

There are two TV things that never seem to change, according to pop-culture expert Robert J. Thompson: The Miss America Pageant and the Price Is Right's Bob Barker.

Except, as of Tuesday, the indefatigable Barker still had his network gig; the fading Miss America didn't.

The pageant is looking for a new prime-time suitor after breaking up with ABC--its seven-year coupling with the network doomed by record-low ratings.

"Creatively, the relationship ran its course and both organizations felt that it was time to part ways," Miss America Organization president and CEO Art McMaster said in a statement.

ABC had no comment on the split.

The most recent pageant, crowning aspiring pediatrician Deidre Downs as Miss America 2005, drew 9.8 million viewers last month--the worst performance on record for an annual show that made its TV debut in 1954.

Since ABC, Miss America's original network home, renewed its commitment to the pageant in 1997, ratings fell by about 50 percent.

The plummeting numbers came despite constant tinkering--two-piece evening gowns, Bachelor host Chris Harrison and less time devoted to performances of the Whitney Houston songbook being this year's innovations.

"I think [the show] is a lot better than what it used to be, but they still have a long way to go," said pageant expert Jamie Swenson.

The Miss America Organization might be inclined to agree. Befitting an outfit that promotes toothy smiles and can-do attitudes, McMaster described Tuesday as "a good day" for the pageant.

"We are now free to pursue other parties who have expressed interest in our organization," McMaster said.

There was no word on precisely who has been courting the 83-year-old American institution.

Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University, said he thinks cable TV is a "very real possibility" as the crown-and-sash crowd's next stop.

The upper-channel setting would be a comedown for an event that used to be a true television event, drawing more than 30 million viewers as recently as 1988, and more than 25 million as recently as 1995.

"When I was a kid growing up in the '60s and '70s, you didn't have many venues where you could see beautiful women in bathing suits," Thompson said.

Baywatch helped change all that. And Thompson thinks Miss America needs to change, too.

The professor recommended expanded coverage, treating the 52 contestants (that's representatives from all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands) as if they were reality-TV players--putting them up in one house and methodically cutting them from the competition, America's Next Top Model-style.

Swenson, who serves as a consultant to pageants as well as aspiring pageant winners, suggested Miss America loosen up.

"I think I would not make it so conservative," said Swenson, who represented South Dakota in the 1997 Miss USA Pageant. "They put a lot of emphasis on the interview, but maybe that's not so [good for] television."

Swenson, for one, wasn't sorry to see the talent portion of the show gutted (this year only two contestants performed on the prime-time telecast, instead of the usual 10)--and wouldn't be sorry to see it go altogether.

At state pageants, Swenson said, audience members treat the talent segment like an intermission--"people get up and go."

Even with the pageant's TV future at a crossroads, Thompson said he doesn't see big changes in the offing. He thinks it'll turn up in prime time next fall "in the old form."

Not that that's necessarily a bad thing.

Said Thompson: "This is one of the great brand names in America."

Next to Bob Barker, of course.