Storm clouds have been following the Miss USA beauty pageant all week. For several days, the event was left without a broadcaster after first Univision and then NBC pulled out of broadcasting the July 12 pageant, following an uproar over remarks made by Donald J. Trump about immigrants in mid-June. Mr. Trump owns 49 percent of the Miss Universe Organization that includes the Miss USA pageant.
The moves will almost certainly result in a diminished television audience for the event, but it will not go dark. On Thursday, the cable network Reelz announced it would broadcast the pageant. The decision “was based on our belief that this special event, and the women who compete in it, are an integral part of American tradition,” said Stan E. Hubbard, the chief executive of Reelz.
But it is a tradition that is something of an anachronism these days as beauty pageants have faded as a beloved institution, and now the organizers of Miss USA are further burdened by getting caught in the center of a political storm. Mr. Trump, who is running for president as a Republican, unleashed a flood of protest when he said during his campaign announcement that some Mexican immigrants were “rapists” and “killers.”
He has stood by his remarks, and sued Univision for $500 million, saying it breached its commitment to televise the pageant. He has been removed as host of NBC’s “The Celebrity Apprentice” and likewise lost deals with Macy’s and the mattress company Serta, all in the last week.
Reelz, an obscure cable channel that’s best known for its lineup of movies, is available in about 60 percent of the country, a fraction of the reach of a national network like NBC.
And amid the furor, the contestants have ended up as collateral damage, waiting to learn the fate of the pageant as networks, co-hosts, judges and performers abandoned it. They acknowledged that the reduced television exposure detracted from its glamour.