Trapps join ABC Family

Hills are alive at network

By JOHN DEMPSEY

ABC Family and ABC Network share a three-year deal for 'The Sound of Music.'

Cable TV has finally got its hands on what may be the last holdout among venerable theatrical movies with the purchase by ABC Family of "The Sound of Music."

ABC Family will pony up about $3 million for a three-year license term to the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical starring Julie Andrews, beginning in April, sharing the movie with its ABC Network sibling.

ABC Network gets one run of "Music" for each of the next three years during the exclusive three-month period of October to December. ABC Family's exclusive window encompasses the nine other months, during which it will be able to schedule seven runs each year.

Historically, the broadcast networks have always kept exclusive dibs on "Music" since it first saw the light of day on ABC in 1976, 11 years after it made its debut in U.S. theaters, winning the Oscar for best picture in 1965.

Twentieth Century Fox, the distributor, put the movie up for bid each time its broadcast contract expired, because TV viewers couldn't get enough of it, gravitating to "Music" in big numbers every holiday period. NBC ran it throughout the 1980s; the Fox Network grabbed it for multiple years in the 1990s, eventually handing it off to NBC. Twentieth's current network deal is with ABC.

ABC Family has to fork over $3 million for "Music" despite the age of the movie and the non-exclusivity, because 20th created an auction among cable networks.

ABC Family has scheduled the first three primetime runs of "Music" for the weekend of April 6. ABC Family will play the movie, which runs two hours, 54 minutes, uncut. With commercial interruptions, "Music" will fill a four-hour time period on each of the three nights, starting at 7.