LIVE SOUND OF MUSIC — MORE COMING?

NBC is hoping that its live telecast of The Sound of Music on Thursday will discourage viewers from taping the three-hour performance and skipping commercials. In an interview with New York Daily News TV columnist David Hinckley, co-producer Neil Meron said that NBC Entertainment President Robert Greenblatt, who greenlighted the production, “is taking a big risk, and I can tell you that other networks are watching. Broadcast TV is looking for live ‘events,’ things that make viewers tune in while they’re happening. … It also makes advertisers happy, because they can’t fast-forward through the commercials.” Meron’s producing partner Craig Zadan is attempting to get out the word that the production is not a remake of the movie but a staging of the original Broadway musical. “Many people today don’t realize the movie was very different from the original stage production,” said Zadan. “I think people will realize from the first scene that this isn’t the movie,” he added, presumably indicating that there will be no opening helicopter shot of star Carrie Underwood dancing and singing atop a mountain.