Miss America, Welcome to the Island

In a quest for ratings survival, the 80-year-old Miss America Pageant is turning to cutthroat tactics popularized by CBS’ “Survivor,” allowing castoff contestants to help crown the winner.

Pageant organizers and ABC have decided to spice up the Sept. 22 telecast with a segment ominously titled “The Eighth Judge.” In a concession to last season’s hit “Survivor” show on which contestants voted others off the series, the 41 eliminated Miss America contestants will have a hand in the final tally. Their ballots will be added up and weighted as one-eighth of the final judges’ decision.

That’s not all. Viewers will periodically be taken backstage to the “jury room,” where well-coiffed also-rans will discuss their favorites.

The innovations reflect the popularity of so-called “reality programs” such as “Survivor,” which drew nearly 30 million viewers each week.

“This is the biggest reality event on television; it’s just that it’s not ever been perceived that way,” said the show’s new producer, Bob Bain. “What happens in pop culture is that people are more interested in seeing civilians and seeing beneath the veneer. It’s the reason those reality shows work. People are interested in the girl next door, and starting this year, we’re showing America that these contestants really are the girl next door.”

Last year, 12.6 million viewers, mostly women, tuned in to the pageant. That marked a 30% decline in viewers since 1997. It led Robert M. Renneisen Jr., president and chief executive of the Miss America Organization, to hire a Santa Monica-based branding and product development company to find ways to spark interest in the pageant.

The firm asked individuals who represented their target markets--nuclear families with members ages 36 to 65 and young women from 17 to 24--to design a contest to select an outstanding young woman in the United States. Respondents said they should avoid modeling the contest on the “superficial” Miss America or Miss Universe pageants.

“They thought she should be smart and articulate. She should be committed to public service. She should be put together well--hair, nails, you know. For us that was a ‘Bingo!’ ” Renneisen said. “That’s everything we do, although they didn’t think we did. So, why do they think that way? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that the only public event we do each year is the televised competition, and we need to revamp this.”

Somehow that research led pageant organizers and ABC executives to seize upon the strategy of “Survivor.” The CBS show began with 16 contestants on an island near Borneo who ate rats and insect larvae and voted one another off the island until just one was left to collect the $1-million survivor’s prize.

“ ‘Survivor’ has permeated all elements of pop culture,” said CBS spokesman Chris Ender. “With most of these cases, you just sort of look at the imitation as a very sincere form of flattery.”

But “Survivor” fans might be disappointed with the updated Miss America Pageant. No one is expecting contestants to shed their congeniality and engage in cat fights.

“The Eighth Judge is an attempt to move toward credibility. These women have been together for three weeks, and they’ve gotten to know one another,” Renneisen said. “Among the requirements of Miss America is leadership, and those women will have a great idea of who possesses that. An awful lot of the rumored jealousies and back-biting is the result of movies. What you’re much more likely to see backstage is something like a sorority house--a lot of teamwork and support. There’s not a lot of catty stuff.”

Andrea Wong, senior vice president of alternative series and specials at ABC, said the network has been brainstorming for ways to invigorate the competition for several years. “It’s a pretty broadly based audience, but obviously, it skews toward women,” Wong said. “Part of the reinvigoration is to try to attract those younger viewers.”

The new format could lure new viewers of all ages and has the potential to reflect contemporary women more than any other pageant, said Leon Potasinski, senior vice president and director of marketing services at Latino advertising agency La Agencia de Orci & Asociados in Brentwood.

“I haven’t watched the show in a long time,” Potasinski said, whose firm is not associated with the pageant. “It had grown stale and was portraying the contestants as Barbie dolls and not how women of today really are. When there’s a change of the format itself, people will tune in out of curiosity, especially because the show is an institution in this country.”

Another goal is to attract more and bigger advertisers. Chuck Bachrach, executive vice president for media and programming at the advertising firm Rubin Postaer and Associates in Santa Monica, said that while producers need to modernize the show, the telecast would benefit by portraying the women in contemporary settings, such as in an athletic or volunteer role. He also said contestants need to be asked harder-hitting questions.

“You want reality? Ask them about abortion, the environment, the things people care about today. They are treading on a fine line. They want to be current, but it’s Miss America, and they don’t want to offend,” Bachrach said. “The show has to play as well in New York as in Des Moines.”

Other additions to the program also are planned, including the “lifestyle and fitness” modification to the bathing suit competition. Contestants will tape-record a biography about their workout regimen.

“Oh, we’re keeping the swimsuits. We like that,” said Renneisen. “But the judges will consider [a taped narration by] the contestant while they’re on stage and a split screen video of what they do to stay physically fit. It’s not just a contest for who’s the prettiest. We have at least one person who’s a bungee jumper and one who drives ATVs and one who is a figure skater.”

The Miss America Pageant was first staged as a beauty contest in September 1921 as a way to keep the summer tourists hanging around Atlantic City, N.J., for a few weeks after Labor Day.

In 1954, it was televised for the first time, and now the organization is the largest scholarship provider for women in the world. The Miss America Organization doles out more than $40 million in scholarship money to female students in college or graduate school each year. But for all these noble goals, many see the contest as a throwback to a time when women were objects to be paraded around a stage wearing the name of their hometown and a frozen smile.

Eric Schotz, chief executive of LMNO Productions, which produced staged, unscripted shows like the Fox series “Boot Camp,” said audiences have an innate curiosity about what they can’t see in the prepackaged televised segments. Schotz developed his own “reality/beauty pageant” for an unnamed television network but declined to provide details.

“[The contestants’] voting is the best indication of what went on behind the scenes,” he said, laughing.

But what if the contestants don’t let down their hair in the jury room? Last year, executives at CBS, which broadcasts the Miss Teen, Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants, considered introducing the voting concept. But in the end, according to Ender, the contestants were “uncomfortable with it.”

But Bachrach says, “Do you really believe that the 41 girls backstage are going to gang up on Miss Texas and say, ‘What a bimbo’?”

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Ratings Slip

Though the Miss America Pageant remains well watched, its TV audience has slipped in recent years:

Millions of households 1998: 10.2, 1999: 10.0, 2000: 8.6