Ratings indicate ABC aired the most-watched Oscar telecast of all time

EW YORK - It was a titanic night for ABC, too.

With an estimated 87 million people in the United States tuning in to all or some of the Academy Awards Monday night, ABC said today it was the most-watched Oscar telecast of all time in the United States.

''That's an astonishing number,'' ABC spokeswoman Susan Sewell said.

The show scored a 40.5 rating and 60 share in Nielsen Media Research's overnight measurement from 38 major markets. Those numbers are expected to drop slightly when ratings for the full country become available late in the afternoon. ABC estimates that the final numbers will still be 22 percent higher than last year.

It is expected to be the top Oscar telecast in ratings since 1983, when ''Gandhi'' was named best picture. Since there are more television homes now than in 1983, the number of people watching is higher.

The extraordinary interest in ''Titanic,'' which won 11 Oscars including best picture, the popularity of other nominated movies and of host Billy Crystal all played a role in the big ratings, ABC said.

The Oscars still don't match the Super Bowl as a television event. An estimated 133 million people watched the Denver Broncos beat the Green Bay Packers in January.

For the national ratings, a point represents 980,000 households or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 98 million TV homes. Share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.