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The 2006 Miss Universe contest returns to its native land Sunday after nine years on the road, when 86 sculpted beauties from around the world go head to head and hip to hip for the crown of the world's most alluring woman.
After a hugely successful effort to extend the franchise's popularity by holding the annual contests in exotic locations like Thailand and Namibia, the glamorous pageant will unfold in Los Angeles, not far from where it began in 1952 in Long Beach, California.
But even as the 55th contest generates excitement around the world -- it gets broadcast in 170 countries and territories, organizers say -- in its home country interest has sagged, with media coverage scarce to nil.
The sight of Miss Venezuela, Miss France, Miss Argentina and Miss Sri Lanka descending from a bus to meet Miss Spain, Miss Mexico and Miss United States in a coffee shop hardly slows traffic in a city where it is possible to run into Pamela Anderson buying bread or see Brad Pitt fixing his motorcycle.
This year's pageant, under the hand of New York real estate magnate and media showman Donald Trump since he rescued it from bankruptcy in 1996, will continue the tradition of naming a world-beating beauty that started with the victory 54 years ago by Armi Helena Kuusela Kovo of Finland.
But if many Americans aren't so interested, their Latin American neighbors are, which could explain why hosting duties for the spectacle will pair Access Hollywood anchor Nancy O'Dell with Spanish-language soap opera heartthrob and singing star Carlos Ponce.
The jury will also be Latino-heavy, with Telemundo anchorwoman Maria Celeste Arraras and the Dominican Republic's Miss Universe 2003 Amelia Vega among them.
Also on the judges' benches are "Ten" movie star Bo Derek, American football hero Emmitt Smith, actor James Lesure, society photographer Patrick McMullan, fashion designer Santino Rice, and Sean Yazbeck, who rose to fame as a contestant on Trump's reality show "The Apprentice".
But the specialists who follow the Miss Universe operation around the world say this year's show suffers from falling popularity.
Part of the reason is that journalists covering the event complain of difficult access to the women, to get interviews and see them pose -- the contestants have been in the city for weeks rehearsing for the show under a strict boarding-school-like regimen.
One veteran of the pageant, Puerto Rican journalist Milly Cangiano, missed the large parties that accompanied previous Miss Universe contests in Panama, Puerto Rico, and Thailand, where hotels, parks, advertisers and the media all played up the show and benefited from it.
"It isn't surprising that in Los Angeles, where there are so many things, people don't know that they are hosting the contest," she wrote in San Juan's Primera Hora newspaper.
It is easy to sell the Miss Universe show to governments of poor countries, whose eyes light up at the attractive profit figures Trump produces to get their attention.
"We spend millions of dollars on the production of Miss Universe and it is estimated to bring in over 15 million dollars worth of local economic impact to the host city," said Erin Cooney of the Miss Universe Organization.
But that is small change in the film Mecca of Hollywood -- about what many movies earn in their first three days in the theaters.
But host countries get a lot of spinoff tourism benefits, with their local attractions appearing on television around the world, Cooney pointed out.
In some countries advertising for the three hours of Miss Universe can be as expensive as spots during the soccer World Cup.
While Mexico City, Manila, Windhoek, Cyprus, San Juan, and Panama saw benefits to hosting the pageant in recent years, Los Angeles doesn't need more promotion for its economy.
"In reality, I think only in Latin countries, Puerto Rico or Venezuela, does the contest matter. In the United States every day there are less television viewers," Cangiano said.
"I don't believe it, last year in Thailand a Canadian won and the whole world followed it," said Osmel Souza, head of the Venezuela pageant, who popularized the idea that Venezuela produces beautiful "Misses" like it produces barrels of oil.
pb/pmh/boc
AFPEntertainment-women-Universe
AFP 220902 GMT 07 06
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