I haven't seen a lot of pageant arcs, myself, but if they're the reason the readers for series drops in numbers, then I can only guess it's because the female cast became like those in real life pageants: they become sellouts, relinquishing their bodies for fame, glory, or what have you and begin their paths to self-destruction in both themselves and their own image.
Here, however, it just works, because the majority of the female cast are already depraved, with some being sellouts of a religion in its derogatory form, and you can't really destroy one's image that's already been broken from the start, all for the sake of the series being portrayed as a comedy. So however this pageant will play out may be a hit-or-miss, but there may not be much change to the reader numbers by the end of it.