BEIJING — China’s athletes may be raking in the gold medals, but the serious Olympic coin is being brought home by China’s state-run broadcaster, China Central Television.

CCTV stands to make hundreds of millions of dollars in profit on the Beijing Olympics, thanks to record viewership and a decade-old agreement with the International Olympic Committee that gives the government network the rights to broadcast the games at bargain-basement prices.

CCTV is part of an Asian consortium, the Asian Broadcasting Union, that cut a group deal in the 1990s to pay $17.5 million for the 2008 Games. China’s share of that fee is not publicly disclosed, but a source said it was “small.”

The International Olympic Committee’s director of television and sponsorships, Timo Lumme, acknowledged yesterday that CCTV got an exceptionally good deal this year.

“I think it’s even a matter of record they’re looking for about $400 million for advertising for the Beijing Games, so, ‘Go figure,’ as they say,” Mr. Lumme told reporters after a news briefing here. “They’ve done very well, but … on the other hand, I mean, look at the level of the Chinese economy and the amount of medals they were winning in 1996, 1997, when the last deal was done. So, obviously, time has moved on and we have to recognize that reality.”

Mr. Lumme said the television audience in mainland China for the opening ceremony in Beijing was estimated at 842 million people. CCTV is raking in ad money by carrying the games on at least nine over-the-air channels. “We’re looking to get a little piece of that in the future,” the IOC official said. “It is a particular objective to make sure that there is a fair distribution of the burden, if you like, or the financial participation, and that’s not necessarily just directed at China.”

For future Olympics, the IOC is insisting that rights for mainland China be negotiated separately and for a “significant multiple” of what the Asian group paid for the Beijing Games, Mr. Lumme said. The sports director for the Asian Broadcasting Union, John Barton, told The New York Sun the group of less-developed and small countries, including China, paid $17.5 million for the 2008 Games.

By contrast, NBC paid a total of more than $1.5 billion for American rights to the 2006 and 2008 Olympics. The company has agreed to pay $2.2 billion to carry the 2010 and 2012 Games on television, cable, and the Web. However, those rights are awarded in an auction, which is not feasible in China, where CCTV is the only national broadcast network. The communist government does not grant broadcast licenses to individuals or private companies.

“China got a deal to rival what Stuyvesant got for Manhattan,” one person familiar with the arrangement said, apparently referring to Peter Minuit’s purchase of the island in 1626 for 60 Dutch guilders, prior to the arrival of Peter Stuyvesant in 1645.

Mr. Lumme also said Olympic officials work to prevent Internet piracy of video clips of Olympic events, but that the incentive for such piracy tends to be low, as in most countries Olympic coverage is provided by free, over-the-air broadcasts. “Why bother?” he said. “Our whole philosophy is to put out the games to as wide an audience as possible.”