Vol. 2, No. 9, September 2005
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Missed America
There she is! Miss America! Seriously, she's coming down the Boardwalk! Just look there between the snow drifts, and you can see her. See? On that dogsled there?
You may actually be able to experience something like this mythical scenario a few months from now, because the Miss America Pageant will now be held in January. But maybe not here. The pageant people don't even know yet if they're going to keep the legendary pageant in its eight-decade home of Atlantic City.
What they do know is it's going to be in January, thanks to their new deal with CMT, which used to stand for Country Music Television, but now stands for "Can't Make Time (for the pageant)." As you will glean from reading Joseph Harrison's feature in this issue, the Miss America Pageant has been wrenched from its traditional September time slot by new network sponsor CMT, which apparently can't fit the internationally renowned program anywhere in its busy September schedule of Dixie Chicks videos and Dukes of Hazzard reruns.
As Mr. Harrison writes, CMT is broadcasting the pageant because of the deal they made with Miss America officials. Pageant officials heralded the deal as a coup because they will get pre-pageant publicity not only on CMT, but on its parent network, MTV. And as should be obvious to anyone, the MTV audience just loves to take breaks between shows like Pimp My Ride and Baby's Blingin' Crib to watch wholesome girls parade around in evening gowns and play the piano.
That's all just fine with me, but why move the pageant from September to January, of all months? Never mind that it may be moved to a place with a less hostile winter climate than Atlantic City… say, Nashville. January is NFL playoff time, and there are usually Saturday games. Unless they are planning for only women to watch the parade, if there even is a parade, no one is going to pry a single red-blooded American male from his TV set on a January weekend, and those TV sets are not going to be tuned to the evening gown competition.
As Harrison reports, casino executives around town are not panicking from the loss of Miss America in September. Instead of non-gambling, all-American pageant people, everyone will now have to fill their hotel rooms this month with revenue-generating gamblers, show-goers and shoppers. And with all the new offerings in town, that's an easy task.
If the pageant does remain here, some casino officials see it as a potential remedy for the typical January business doldrums. It would be a big event to bring people in who would otherwise be hunkering down to escape the cold, thinking about anything but going to a shore resort for the weekend. So here's my message to the pageant people: If you're keeping the pageant here and holding it in January, bring it on—we'll be ready. Maybe we can provide a good Nor'easter for the parade route, or better yet, one of those deep-freeze January cold snaps. Boy, that will bring the people in.
Meanwhile, maybe we can hold a parade on the Boardwalk this month anyway—a new annual event. How about a Miss'd America parade? The South Jersey AIDS Alliance runs that tongue-in-cheek Miss'd America event every year, so why don't we get the female impersonators down on the Boardwalk in their evening gowns to help us extend the summer season?
I'll bet MTV would broadcast that!
