Last year, ABC dropped the Miss America pageant because it drew fewer than 10 million viewers. Despite the bathing suit contests and the breathless hype, interest in the contest has waned with each telecast.

It's difficult to maintain a prurient interest in the discreet sexuality of the Miss America pageant when half-naked women can be found up and down the cable dial vamping without sashes. A typical rerun of HBO's "Sex and the City" delivers triple the raw sex appeal of "Miss America" while sparing the viewer the ordeal of having to listen to Miss Oklahoma play the ukulele.

So how does Miss America recover a scintilla of cultural relevance in the era of "Desperate Housewives" and "Girls Gone Wild" videos? Could it be that a beauty pageant with roots in the patriarchal assumptions of 19th-century America has an expiration date that has already come and gone?

The pageant refuses to go gently into that dark night.

Instead of taking time to regroup and rethink her reason for existing, Miss America has gone the route of desperation. America's favorite cheesecake display has signed with the William Morris agency. Now plans are afoot to bring the pageant back to TV in the form of a six- or seven-episode run as a reality series.

Imagine "What Not to Wear" meets "The Surreal Life" with a little "Survivor" and "The Apprentice" thrown in. Is that what the Miss America pageant has come to?

In an amazing leap in logic, chief executive officer Art McMaster believes viewers are ready for a Miss America pageant in the mode of their favorite reality shows. Since reality programming is about voyeurism, unconscionable betrayal, exhibitionism and gratuitous displays of human flesh, he may be on to something.

We'll know in a few weeks whether the revamped Miss America will have a home on network television. If not, there are always cable outlets. And if worse comes to worst, the folks pushing "Girls Gone Wild" videos might get some tips on how to sell.