Miss America Pageant tries on a retro look

updated 5:13 p.m. ET Jan. 19, 2007

LAS VEGAS - One year after she left home in search of better fortunes, Miss America has gone totally Hollywood.

She’s got her own reality TV show, a catchy new ringtone and she’s giving away cash to lucky viewers. She’s competing in a “pageant” again, rather than the politically correct and, some say, boring “scholarship program” of the past.

After years of struggling for relevance and viewers, the Miss America Pageant and its cable network host are attempting to market the beauty contest back into the American cultural conscience.

“There was a time when everyone knew Miss America’s name, but the brand has slipped a little,” said Sam Haskell, a former executive at the William Morris Agency and now chairman of the board of directors of the Atlantic City, N.J.-based Miss America Organization.

“We thought it was time to repolish the brand.”

There are few who would argue the aging beauty queen doesn’t need the help. After years as a Saturday-night television event, the pageant hemorrhaged viewers in the 1990s, eventually losing its network contract in 2004. Country Music Television picked her up and moved her to Las Vegas last year, hoping the hype would draw new viewers.

The move, though considered by some as a blow to Atlantic City and the die-hard volunteers — pageanistas — who drive the operation, generally was viewed as a success.

The pageant was aired a combined 20 times on CMT, owned by Viacom Inc.’s MTV Networks, and its sister-network VH1, the network said. Although just 3.1 million viewers watched the show live — less than one-third the viewers she last found on ABC — a total of 36 million people saw the show including the replays. Even the traditionalists couldn’t argue with that exposure.

“You can’t stay status quo in this day and age or you get left behind,” said Maris Schad, a middle school teacher and the volunteer executive director of the Miss Nebraska state pageant. “You’ve got to find out what the public wants and try and do a little tweaking that catches their interest.”

This year’s marketing campaign amounts to more than a tweak. CMT, reaching 83 million households, will have run more than nine hours of Miss America-related programming before the 52 contestants take the stage for the Monday, Jan. 29 crowning at the Aladdin hotel-casino, itself also in the middle of a rebranding to the Planet Hollywood casino.

The TV blitz includes “Total Access: Miss America,” a behind-the-scenes look at life under the crown, and a “Greatest Miss America Moments” special.

The new lineup also features a reality TV special, “Pageant School: Becoming Miss America,” shot in Los Angeles and scheduled to air in the days before the pageant on CMT, VH1, MTV and Logo. The show follows the women through a regimen of training tips imparted by former winners and pageant “challenges” that present unanticipated obstacles, such as the question posed to Miss Nebraska: “If you could have one superpower, what would it be and why?”

“I would like to have a photogenic memory,” she replied, flashing an unknowing pageant smile.

Interested fans in search of a ringtone can download a version of longtime host Bert Parks’ classic “There She Is, Miss America.” Others can log online to play the “Pick & Win Game,” which promises $1 million to the person who successfully predicts the top finalists and the winner.

This is not the Miss America Pageant of old, a deft combination of gams and goodness that began as a bathing revue in 1921 on the Boardwalk and by the mid-1990s began refering to itself as a scholarship program to emphasize substance over superficiality.

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