TV's Miss America turns 50

Reality TV has invaded even the staid Miss America pageant. In a perennial effort to attract more viewers, the pageant's finals, which air on ABC this Saturday, will pit the two final contestants against each other in the talent competition.

Such a move, along with cameras backstage to capture the hustle and hairspray, is an effort to make the show - celebrating the 50th anniversary of its first telecast - appear more hip to audiences hooked on reality shows. That first program in 1954 drew 27 million viewers - more than double the number who watched in 2003.

Producers have even hired Chris Harrison, host of ABC's reality shows "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette," to emcee.

These are the latest efforts to gussy up the quaint program that allows people to root for the home-state girl while scrutinizing what defines beauty today. But relying on the ritualistic appeal of the show may no longer be enough. Competitions between attractive people - in sports, dating, and makeovers - are easy to find on TV. Today, it's the politics of ratings, more than political correctness of pageants, that create controversy for the telecast.

"The trap they fall into is trying to compete so blatantly with these other shows, with the reality shows," says Bill Goodykoontz, TV critic at the Arizona Republic newspaper. "Nobody is ever going to look at the Miss America pageant, and think, 'Man that is hip, that is really cool.' But they might look at it and think, 'You know it's fun, it's a throwback.' "

In recent years the telecast - which has appeared on ABC, NBC, and CBS - has gone through a variety of changes: The women are now required to take part in a multiple-choice quiz (on pop culture or United States history, for example), and two-piece bathing suits are allowed, as is "casual wear."

Despite criticism by feminists and newspaper columnists that the swimsuit competition was demeaning to women, that portion of the broadcast has survived. In fact, a reported plan to scrap it in 1995 was dropped after viewers voted it down, and when polled more recently, they said they wouldn't watch without it.

The criticism has been diluted in recent years, as the pageant's bathing beauties seem tame compared with midriff-baring model wannabes all over TV.

"I don't know that competing on 'Fear Factor' in your bikini is necessarily the greatest image for women either, but [the pageant] seems to have moved past that particular controversy," says Mr. Goodykoontz.

Despite ambivalence toward beauty pageants, more women than men actually watch the show: 68 percent to 32 percent, respectively.

After much discussion, producers made other changes this year, including the talent portion of the contest. In addition to the competition between the final two, the broadcast will also show a montage of the Top 10 finalists' performances, in an effort to streamline the show from three hours to two.

"Obviously 'Miss America' would love to have all [the contestants perform] on TV, but ... you have to look back and say what was successful, what was not," says Art McMaster, head of the Miss America Organization, which along with state and local affiliates provided more than $45 million in cash and college scholarships in 2003.

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