Miss What TV Used to Be, Miss America?

Newsday calls this year's Miss America Pageant a "hit with viewers" with about 6 million total TV watchers on Saturday night. Six million TV viewers beat the other "major" broadcast networks for the night.

Oh, how the times have changed.

Just FIVE years ago, the MAP had nearly 16 million viewers--and it was a 3 hour show! Who has that kind of stamina to watch Stepford women for 3 hours?

In 5 years, 10 million people have decided to watch or do something else.

Here's why.

MAP was one of the first successful reality shows. Ironic since reality shows are anything but. But it was a TV model that everyone copied (I love play on words, forgive me; I promise no more parenthetical; this is a blog [not the Back Page of Time Magazine] where parentheticals are tacky in the former [but what about brackets?]).

Like I was saying, MAP is a TV model everyone copied. It was a familiar, almost comforting structure. Mini-contest after contest, tensions rise as contestants were whittled away through elimination, then a final winner.

MAP couldn't have predicted how many spin-offs of them would happen in just 5 years. THE SWAN, BACHELOR, WHAT IF I MARRIED A MILLIONAIRE, the list goes on.

Beauty pageants aren't anything special anymore; TV isn't anything special anymore.

The ratings prove it in both cases.

But there's hope.

TV can be special again but it will take bold leadership. Unfortunately, this is hard to come by in both politics and Hollywood. Some say the viewers lost to XBox players and the Internet are gone forever. I disagree.

If you make it good, they will watch.

Let's start making it good again.