Plenty of Room for Stars of All Kinds Television viewers Sunday night will face a choice of events: the Oscars or the N.B.A. All-Star Game. "The Artist" versus LeBron James. "Hugo" versus Melo. Clooney versus Kobe. ABC's Academy Awards coverage begins with a 90-minute red carpet show at 7 p.m. Eastern, followed by the awarding of the statuettes starting at 8:30. TNT's All-Star Game broadcast starts at 7:30, but it, too, will be preceded by a 90-minute pregame show. The Oscars do not have much to fear from the N.B.A. All-Star Game. Last year, they were a week apart. And the envelope says: 37.9 million watched the Academy Awards and 9.1 million watched the game, according to Nielsen. The time that the two broadcasts overlap may not hurt either one very much. "There might be some channel surfing from the Oscars because there's always dead air between the awards," said Brad Adgate, the director of research for Horizon Media. But both can coexist. There's very little shaded area between the two. Their audiences are quite different. Those who watch the Oscars tend to be female and older. All-Star Game viewers are more likely to be younger and male. "Certainly we realize that we have two strong events, but we think our audiences are distinct and different," said David Levy, the president of Turner Sports, the parent company of TNT. The N.B.A."s midseason extravaganza, usually on Presidents" Day weekend, was moved because of concern two years ago that the N.F.L. would expand to an 18-week season. The N.F.L. schedule did not change, but it was too late for the N.B.A. to shift the All-Star date, said Adam Silver, the deputy commissioner. In 2013, the game in Houston will move back a week. Last year, 61 percent of the Oscars audience was female, according to Nielsen. Some of the highest viewership of the show was among women 35 or older. But for the All-Star Game, two-thirds of the audience was male; more than a third was 18 to 34, and most of that group was male. Although Jeremy Lin will not play in the All-Star Game to boost New York market viewing, the N.B.A. has rebounded strongly from its lockout, which may help its viewership. That could push its audience past last year's 9.1 million, which itself was a big leap over 6.8 million in 2010. And there is no huge box-office smash among the Best Picture nominees, which could affect the audience for the Oscars, Adgate said. Adgate recalled that in late March 1987, the Oscars faced another sports event, and one that is truly meaningful: the N.C.A.A. men's basketball final. Indiana's 1-point victory over Syracuse generated an audience of 32 million viewers. The Oscars, with "Platoon" winning best picture, drew 39.7 million. Late that night, Chevy Chase, one of the Oscars" hosts, said, "Is the game over yet?"