LAS VEGAS – The annual Miss America pageant will return to the Las Vegas Strip for its 2007 contest, organizers said Thursday.
The crowning will air live on Country Music Television from the Aladdin Resort & Casino on Jan. 29, organizers said.
The 85-year-old beauty contest jilted its hometown of Atlantic City, New Jersey, for Las Vegas last year in search of a younger audience, a fresh look and lower production costs.
"I can't tell you how happy everyone is to be returning to Las Vegas," Art McMaster, chief executive of the Atlantic City-based Miss America Organization, told The Associated Press.
"We got a tremendous amount of media coverage in Las Vegas and that is why we went there in the first place," he said.
McMaster said the pageant would stick with the back-to-basics makeover that producers delivered in 2006, scuttling a plan announced in April to incorporate elements of reality television into the pageant.
"For at least another year we're going to keep with tradition," McMaster said.
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