About 214 million Chinese in more than 100 million families, or 70 percent of the national total, watched the annual Spring Festival evening gala broadcast live on the eve of the Lunar New Year.

The program, from China Central Television (CCTV), still enjoys top audience ratings worldwide among Chinese, according to the latest survey of the Nielsen Media Research.

The annual Spring Festival gala celebration started in the 1980s. Since then, it has been the most popular TV event of the year. The special usually features dances, songs and short comedies.

This year's Spring Festival fell on Feb. 7. The show was broadcast live by several CCTV channels from 8:00 p.m. on Feb. 6 to 1:00 a.m. the next day.

The survey found that among all the television audience during the period, 68.16 percent tuned in the CCTV gala.

Compared with the northern part of the country, Chinese in southern China showed little interest to the show. The booming province of Guangdong posted the lowest audience ratings among all monitored regions, with only 4.59 percent watching.

In contrast, 24 million people in eastern Shandong Province, one of the most populous region of the country, tuned in the gala, the highest among all monitored places. The province has a 93.67 million population.

Nielsen Media Research set up its China branch in August 2005.