EW YORK - On ABC, CBS, and Fox, television cameras followed it live last night as Florida's secretary of state signed documents certifying George W. Bush the winner of the state's 25 presidential electoral votes.
At the same time on NBC, Leonardo DiCaprio set sail aboard the ''Titanic.''
Not willing to cast aside the heavily promoted broadcast premiere of the Academy Award-winning movie to carry the certification live, NBC instead delivered a terse special report about it 20 minutes later.
The ongoing presidential election drama - the biggest hit in years for the cable news networks - provided more dramatic fodder for television yesterday.
NBC said it was a judgment call to delay its certification report. The ceremony was carried live on its cable news sister station, MSNBC, and the delay enabled NBC to include part of Democratic vice presidential candidate Joseph I. Lieberman's reaction before its broadcast rivals, the network said.
''We made a decision to update the movie audience throughout the evening and thought that's how we should do it,'' spokeswoman Barbara Levin said.
Less than three hours earlier, NBC's Tom Brokaw broke into network programming for a report at the 5 p.m. court deadline for vote recounts. CBS stuck with a football game and ABC with golf.
NBC also showed ''Titanic'' when Bush delivered a short speech at 9:30 p.m., coming in later with a clip. ABC and CBS carried the speech live, and Fox stayed with regular programming.
Although Bush supporters broke into cheers and song at the certification, network announcers were careful not to cast it with any finality.
''If you're saying, `Does this end it?' the answer is not necessarily and not immediately,'' CBS's Dan Rather said.
ABC's Peter Jennings signed off his report with a promise: ''It's going to be a long and messy week.''
Ahead on Friday is a US Supreme Court hearing on Bush's challenge of a Florida court's decision to allow manual vote recounting. CNN announced that it would file a petition on Tuesday asking the Supreme Court to cast aside its longstanding rule prohibiting television from showing its proceedings.
Behind Jennings in ABC's studio was a multicolored map of the United States left over from Election Night. Florida was colored red - signifying a Bush victory.
ABC explained the map was changed because of the certification. ABC, along with the other broadcast networks, made two premature calls on Election Night - first declaring Florida for Al Gore and then for Bush, declaring the Republican the next president.
ABC did not declare Bush the president-elect. CBS avoided the issue of declaring Florida for Bush, and NBC said it wouldn't do so until the legal challenges are complete. The Associated Press said it would not be able to declare a Florida winner because of pending legal challenges in state courts and before the US Supreme Court.
Earlier yesterday, cable news networks tried to bring drama to the certification deadline - although signs of weariness intruded.
CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC all ran tickers on their screen counting down the time to the 5 p.m. deadline. With Fox News Channel's ticker at 90 minutes, the network ran a live shot of vote counters in Palm Beach County.
The room was virtually silent, except the occasional click of a photographer's shutter.
''As you can tell, it is a tired group,'' anchorman John Gibson said.
Ten minutes before the deadline, MSNBC ran pictures of paper - presumably vote tallies - being fed into a fax machine. Anchor Brian Williams called it ''very dramatic stuff.''
