Miss America On The Move Again

The Miss America Organization has announced today a new multiple-year deal with TLC to broadcast the pageant over the next few years, beginning with the 2008 pageant on January 26.

CMT opted not to continue broadcasting the pageant after horrible ratings the last two years, which not coincidentally were the first two the pageant originated from Las Vegas.

TLC has been a network desperately in search of an identity. Once known as "The Learning Channel", the network then went through a few phases. One was the "let's rip apart our house and redo it" phase, spearheaded by the show "Trading Spaces", a few years of which we actually chronicled here at davemackey.com, until the show got too big and too full of itself. "Trading Spaces" is now dead, killed partly by its former carpenter, Ty Pennington, who added mawkishness to the mix with his "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition"; suddenly, it, "While You Were Out", "In A Fix", "Town Haul" and the like were all off the air.

TLC seems now populated by a weird mix of Teutuls, Roloffs and tattoo artists, plus the occasional appearances by grotesquely obese people and Clinton and Stacy. Now, we add Miss America to the mix - and TLC is going to hop on that one big time with a planned reality show about the pageant.

Ugh! I remember when Miss America only required three hours of our time once a year - and came to you live from the sun and fun capital of New Jersey, Atlantic City! Now it's out in Vegas and people don't seem to care. Even the Miss America Walk near the new outlet shops stops somewhere around the time Ron Ely started hosting the pageant, sidestepping that whole Vanessa Williams thing (oddly, losing that crown kicked her career in high gear).

TLC, how's this? MOVE THE FREAKING PAGEANT BACK TO ATLANTIC CITY! That's the only thing that can save it. And you.