2008 Olympic Games.

Beijing (dpa) - State-run China Central Television (CCTV) won a record 8.03 billion yuan (1.07 billion dollars) at its annual auction of prime-time advertising slots, as the approach of next year’s Olympic Games spurred an 18-percent rise from last year, state media said on Monday.

Air China, the country’s flagship airline, paid 36.7 million yuan (4.9 million dollars) for a slot immediately after the national evening news next August, the Beijing News said.

“When you consider that that August 2008 is month of the Olympics, it makes the whole year into a bumper one for advertising,” the newspaper quoted Xia Hongbo, head of advertising for CCTV, as saying at Sunday’s auction.

The broadcaster earned about 6.8 billion yuan (915 million dollars) from 180 companies at its annual auction of prime-time advertising last year, up 16 per cent from 2005.

US cosmetics giant Procter and Gamble spent 420 million yuan (57 million dollars) last year, keeping its place as CCTV’s biggest customer at the auction for the third year in a row.

Slots for Olympic-related programmes were included for the first time last year, with the state-run Bank of China agreeing to pay a total of 127.7 million yuan (17.2 million dollars) to become sole sponsor of two Olympic shows.