The CW Drops Miss USA and Miss Teen USA Telecasts One Week Before Air
The CW has pulled the Miss USA and Miss Teen USA pageants from its schedule roughly one week before they were set to air, sending both competitions back to streaming.
Miss Teen USA had been scheduled for August 26 and the Miss USA pageant — its 75th Diamond anniversary edition — for August 27, 2026. Both will now stream on the Queen Beauty Network instead, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The Miss USA Organization blamed what it called "a contractual issue with our production arrangements," saying it identified the problem two weeks before the scheduled broadcasts. It said it could not reach mutually agreeable terms with The CW for a live broadcast of this year's events. The network confirmed it "decided to forego" the telecasts after conversations with the organisation.
This was supposed to be a fresh start. The CW first aired Miss USA in 2023, under a three-year broadcast deal announced ahead of the 2024 special. That deal did not last. Last year's pageants moved to the Queen Beauty Network, a streaming platform, after the CW arrangement fell through. Then in June 2026, Miss USA and The CW announced a new agreement to carry the 2026 competitions, with The CW named exclusive broadcast partner. Miss Teen USA was set to air live from the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, followed by the Miss USA diamond anniversary celebration (The CW press release, June 2026). That deal has now collapsed too, and the pageants are back where they were a year ago — on streaming.
The Miss USA Organization said it is grateful for its relationship with The CW and remains open to future collaboration, even though the network will not carry a live broadcast this year (AOL). No replacement broadcaster has been named.
For viewers who still tune in, the pageants will be available — just not on the channel they expected, and not in the appointment-television slot that a network broadcast provides. A streaming window on the Queen Beauty Network means the audience finds the show through an app rather than by flipping to a channel. Whether that changes the reach of this year's competitions, or simply moves them to a smaller screen, will depend on viewing figures the platform chooses to release.
The broader pattern is harder to miss. The CW and Miss USA have now struck, lost, rebuilt, and lost again a broadcast relationship in the space of roughly three years. Each time the pageants have landed on streaming, the audience has had to follow.
