America Loves Miss America!! Audience grows!

The Miss America Organization announced today that the 2011 Miss America Pageant presented by DSW Designer Shoe Warehouse had a new reach of 14.6 million viewers on ABC, based on an average viewership of 6.7 million people, up 49 percent from last year.

The pageant, which aired from 9 to 11 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 15, drew ABC's biggest non-sports audience in the timeslot since April 2009 and easily placed second to Fox for the night. The announcement of the 90th Anniversary Miss America, Teresa Scanlan, a 17-year-old from Nebraska and one of the youngest winners in the history of Miss America, kept ratings growing through the night despite the gridiron competition of two NFL Divisional Playoff games.

In the first half-hour of the telecast, Miss America was in third place with 5.25 million viewers, but for the remainder of the 2-hour live telecast (tape delayed on the West Coast), the pageant held onto second place for the night, with the audience growing to 7.85 million viewers.

© Erik Kabik/ RETNA/ erikkabik.com