ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. – Miss America's got a when — but no where. The famous beauty pageant, which is taking its show on the road after 84 years in Atlantic City, will air Jan. 21 on cable channel Country Music Television, pageant CEO Art McMaster said Thursday.
But no final decision has been made on the site, with three cities still in the running. McMaster wouldn't identify them.
He said CMT (search) executives were still evaluating telecast production issues — arena, lights, staging — before deciding which city should host the pageant.
Twenty cities had expressed interest in hosting the pageant, according to McMaster, who would not say when an announcement will be made about the site.
The pageant, a ratings loser in recent years, was dropped by ABC (search) last year, leaving Miss America (search) without a network TV contract for the first time since 1954.
In August, McMaster announced plans to stop staging the event at the city's Boardwalk Hall because of high production costs, saying pageant officials would seek a new home where the host city or entity would pay for the right to hold the annual extravaganza.
Lisa Chader, a spokeswoman for Nashville, Tenn.-based CMT, did not return telephone calls Thursday.
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