Record bids for CCTV airtime (3)

But Xu Fan, a professor with the Communication University of China, said CCTV's advertising slots would continue to be attractive for bidders because of its authority with viewer and high ratings during major holidays such as Spring Festival, regardless of program quality.

Xu's comment were echoed by He Yangqing, vice-president of Gome Electrical Appliances Holding, who said he would spend less on other media to guarantee advertising expenditure on CCTV for its high price-performance ratio. Gome has purchased more than 400 million yuan of advertising slots on CCTV for 2013.

Meanwhile, there is still room for growth as the aggregate spending on advertising only accounted for 0.6 percent of China's GDP, compared to an average 2 percent in developed countries, Li said.

The auction also came as the National Party Congress vowed to double the national income by 2020, "thus there is still huge potential in China's consumer market," CCTV's He said.