ABSTRACT
The phenomenal success of The Sound of Music on screen has meant that it has become popular property for producers looking to experiment with new entertainment formats. As a result there have been a series of The Sound of Music events, the success of which producers have then attempted to replicate using other properties, such as Grease, but have, instead, suffered from a law of diminishing returns. For the first American television broadcast of The Sound of Music in February 1976, ABC paid $15 million for a single transmission and it became one of the top rated movies shown on TV in history. In 1999 the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival programmed a Sing-a-Long-a-Sound of Music and encouraged audiences to don fancy dress and come dressed as nuns, Nazis or even ‘brown paper packages tied up with string’. The Sound of Music made a return to TV soon after the talent show format had expired.
