Move over “Trading Spaces” and “A Baby Story” you’ve got a new neighbor… Miss America.
Five months after getting the boot from Country Music Television, the beauty competition has found a new home on TLC. Network execs announced that it would air a reality show about Miss America, culminating with the finals on January 26, 2008 in Las Vegas. (The network also agreed to air the pageant for two years after that.)
It’s hard to believe that the Miss America pageant, which once was a staple of life in Atlantic City and must-see TV in primetime has struggled to find a network to air it. (I suppose with the explosion of TV channels available there are more than enough places to see women strutting around in swimsuits and playing the violin.
Interestingly, up until yesterday’s announcement, women who had won state pageants this summer were not sure if they would even be vying for Miss America. Now they know they will… on the network famous for shows such as “What Not To Wear.”
Finally… some good news for the family of stabbing victim Ronald Goldman.
According to news reports, a literary agent for the Goldman family has made a deal to publish O.J. Simpson’s canceled “If I Did It” book about the slayings of Goldman and Simpson’s ex-wife.
The agent told reporters, “The family and publisher have pledged to leave Simpson’s manuscript entirely intact, but they will also add key commentary.”
The agent also addressed the question on everyone’s mind: “Where’s the money from the book going to go?”
According to the Goldman’s, the proceeds from the book sale will go to the Ron Goldman Foundation for Justice. The turn of events follows a judge’s recent ruling that awarded rights to the book to Goldman’s family to help satisfy a $38 million wrongful death judgment against O.J. Simpson.
You’ll recall plans to publish the book were cancelled last year as originally planned because of massive public outrage. The book reportedly explains how the former football star might have committed the killings. Simpson, of course, has spent much of the last decade vigorously maintaining his innocence in the 1994 killings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Goldman. Simpson was acquitted of the murder in 1995.