ABC's Airing of Original SOUND OF MUSIC is Most-Watched in 6 Years

Following an original live presentation of THE SOUND OF MUSIC on NBC, the ABC network aired the original film, 'The Sound of Music,' starring Academy Award winner Julie Andrews on Sunday, December 22nd. To the delight of network execs, the broadcast was a ratings hit with viewers.

For the 2nd year in row, the network's rebroadcast of the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic was up over its year-ago telecast (on 12/23/12) in Total Viewers (+25% - 6.5 million vs. 5.2 million) and Adults 18-49 (+18% - 1.3/4 vs. 1.1/3), marking the annual movie's most-watched airing in 6 years and highest-rated among young adults in 3 years - since 2007 and 2010, respectively.

In addition, "The Sound of Music" was Sunday's most social program on broadcast, with 25,604 tweets and 1.3 tweets per unique user.

NBC's recent rebroadcast of The Sound of Music Live! delivered more than 3 million additional viewers, adding to the 18.4 million who tuned in to the initial presentation on Thursday, December 5th. In addition, the special had added close to three million viewers in the first three days of delayed viewing, bringing the total number of viewers to over 24 million. The show dominated that Thursday evening with NBC's best 18-49 Thursday average, excluding sports, since the night of the "ER" finale. In total viewers, it was NBC's best Thursday average excluding sports since May 13, 2004. The network recently announced that they would undertake another live musical presentation in 2014.

The 1965 film The Sound of Music was directed and produced by Robert Wise and starred Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer. The film was derived from the Broadway musical The Sound of Music, with songs written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, the musical book written by the writing team of Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, and the screenplay written by Ernest Lehman.

Based on the book The Story of the Trapp Family Singers by Maria von Trapp, the film is about a young woman who leaves an Austrian convent to become a governess to the seven children of a naval officer widower. The Sound of Music contains many classic songs, including "Edelweiss", "My Favorite Things", "Climb Ev'ry Mountain", "Do-Re-Mi", "Sixteen Going on Seventeen", "The Lonely Goatherd", and the title song, "The Sound of Music".