Record bids for CCTV airtime

The annual advertising auction of China Central Television, a barometer of the country's economy, drew record bids on Sunday despite slowing economic growth, highlighting the strong business confidence in the consumer market next year.

The auction of airtime on China's only national television network drew bids totaling 15.8 billion yuan ($2.5 billion) for 2013, up 11.4 percent from the previous year. Jiannanchun, a famour liquor producer, was the top bidder with an expenditure of 608 million yuan.

The 12-hour auction kicked off with an auspicious start when Huiyuan Juice Group Ltd seized the exclusive naming right of Xingguang Dadao, one of China's most popular talent shows, at 340 million yuan.

But the record was soon broken, as liquor makers competed fiercely for advertising rights to the countdown to Xinwen Lianbo, the nation's most influential news program, on which Wuliangye Group Co lavished 499 billion yuan, a considerable increase on the 352 million yuan spent by last year's top bidder Kweichow Moutai Co.

Total spending on this slot amounted to 1.07 billion yuan, 62 percent higher than last year's bidding price of 656 billion yuan, and after a government call to limit the amount of airtime given to liquor-related TV ads.

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