The national broadcaster said that ad revenue last month hit RMB600 million (US$73 million), six times the amount it pulled in at the last World Cup in 1998. That translates into an average US$6,000 per second of advertising airtime.
CCTV had exclusive broadcasting rights to the tournament, however, there was rampant diversion of its signals to city, provincial and local stations.
This occurred even where there were express agreements with specific stations over what could be broadcast.
Local stations went as far as replacing the CCTV logo with their own channel ID.
The breaches occurred despite a McCann-Erickson produced a public service TVC, which announced that CCTV was the official broadcaster.
"Some small local TV stations did not even inform CCTV and telecast matches with their clients' ads, said ZenithMedia Shanghai deputy MD, Derek Kwok.
Media agencies said that advertisers, which have forked out huge sums for national coverage, would suffer because either their ads did not appear nationally or viewers were diverted from CCTV to other channels.
