The move, which also includes other ratings magnets such as the biennial talent contest Youth Singer and the 2006 FIFA World Cup, underscores CCTV's continuing drive to consolidate its most valuable properties into its successful auction format, which raises around 50 per cent of annual ad revenue in a single day. The broadcaster has rebranded the auction as the 'Premium Resources Auction', dropping its former prime-time tag to reflect the inclusion of popular non-prime-time slots.
"They want to bring all their resources into the auction," said Richard Ji, North China buying director for Universal McCann, who pointed to increasing popularity of key emerging local and provincial broadcasters such as Hunan Satellite TV, which scored two recent hits with imported Korean drama Daejanggeum, or Jewel in the Palace, and Idol-style show Super Girls, which pulled in almost 400 million viewers for last month's final.
"As the competition in the China TV market becomes more intense, the auction format changes are commercially driven," said Alex Abplanalp, CEO of Zenith Media. "They are primarily designed to grow CCTV's advertising revenue, increase its market share and secure up front commitments at the expense of other TV station groups at provincial, regional and city level."
CCTV is also dropping some of the packages offering bundled deals combining CCTV-1 slots with airtime on other channels in its auction in favour of deals focusing on CCTV-1. The changes come as the national broadcaster is in the midst of a major restructure fostering closer links between production and advertisement departments, charging individual channels with greater responsibility to achieve ratings and reach targets.
CCTV has also rearranged its prime-time auction inventory on CCTV-1. A new time-check before the news broadcast at 10pm will be auctioned off following the success of the 7pm time check, which attracts some of the auction's fiercest bidding, while new slots have been added around top-rated shows such as the Weather Forecast and influential current affairs review Focus.
CCTV plans to revamp its news magazine Oriental Horizon next year to drive ratings and lure advertisers. CCTV moved Oriental Horizon from a morning slot to early evening last year to usher in its CCTV-1 prime-time schedule.
