I can't believe ANYONE watches it.

Why are the Virgin Islands included, but not Puerto Rico?

They're both US territories

Maybe I'm imagining this, but I seem to remember watching the Pageant in the 60s, and as each contestant walked down the catwalk in her swimsuit, the announcer gave her measurements (along with the other innocuous information about where she was from, what she wanted to do after college, etc.)

Does anybody else "of a certain age" remember this? Will they be bringing this back too?

Personally, I find the idea that Miss America ever was anything but a beauty contest kind of insulting. Okay, they started to ask questions that required a modicum of intelligence to answer. So, instead of telling girls that they had to be extremely thin, have perfect features (surgically, if necessary), and look terrific in a swimsuit (also through surgery, if necessary) in order to represent America, they were telling girls that they had to be thin, beautiful, and have big breasts AND be intelligent in order to represent America. Miss America is nothing more than a nationally televised wet t-shirt contest without the spray bottles. As much as I loved watching it a a girl, I think we'll all be better off when it's gone and we have one less source telling little girls that they can be anything they want to be - as long as they are beautiful.

on making it more of what the people who like it want. I mean ask yourself: Is there ANYTHING they could do to make you approve of it and want to watch it?

Agreed, it's often worse to try to make something appeal to everyone (trying to make Miss America acceptable to an increasingly equal US), than to just say that it is what it is. It's a beauty contest.

I don't think they can do anything to increase the market. There's a limited market and that's that. It's not even a sexy wet tee shirt contest, that would have a huge audience. It's just insulting AND boring. There may be like 3 10-year-old girls in Kansas who are interested and not insulted. If they want to revamp it for them, go ahead. It's going to die anyway. It's time is gone, no one is interested.

It's so HAS BEEN it's not even worth criticizing, it's just sad.

A current events quiz never covered up what this has always been - a cheesy beauty pageant for empty headed women (participants, organizers and viewers). I can't really say it's more offensive to get rid of that aspect and bring back Miss Congeniality.

It's no worse and no better than anything else on.

I do love how it brings out the bitter ire of some women, though. It's just funny. It's no better and no worse than the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. Or the New York Firefighter's Calendar. We like looking at pretty things.

Don't watch it if it bugs you.

ha ha, it doesn't bring out any bitter ire! It's laughable!

I mock it and scorn it, not fear it.

It's dorky, has-been, out-dated, so last-centruy.

I don't like it and I don't watch it, and

NEITHER DOES ANYONE ELSE!

That's what's so laughtably pitiful, the ratings are in the tank, no one watches, no one cares. We're not insulted, we're bored.

"It's no better and no worse than the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition."

It's way worse, actually.

The saddest thing about it, aside from the attempts to convince us that it's not a beauty contest, is that it isn't even a good beauty contest.

Maybe in the fifties these things were a respectable way for women to profit off their looks. Now it's just a waste of time. Any pretty woman could make way more money being in Sports Illustrated, or any magazine, or any reality show.

This contest survives for people who want to believe that there can be something genteel about profiting off one's own looks. They can believe what they want. I'll be looking at the pretty women in the magazines.