Beauty fest was no ratings trump

Donald Trump boasted to reporters that Jennifer Hawkins, the 5-foot-11 Australian crowned Miss Universe on Tuesday night, is the pageant’s most beautiful winner “in many, many years.”

But Trump, the “Apprentice” mogul who controls the parent organization behind Miss Universe, had less to brag about in the ratings. Though easily the night’s top-rated program, NBC’s telecast of Trump’s beauty fest lured just 10.5 million viewers, a 13% slide compared with last year, according to early figures from Nielsen Media Research.

NBC blamed the decline on a mediocre lead-in from a “Fear Factor” repeat. But Miss Universe was also upstaged by the two-hour debut of “Summerland,” the WB network’s summer soap, which rounded up a strong 4.6 million viewers. Fox, meanwhile, recruited a disappointing 3.2 million viewers for its “Summer Music Mania.”

-- Scott Collins