New statistics released Wednesday by China's Documentary Film Development Research Report, issued by the Documentary Center of Beijing Normal University, revealed that China's total investment in documentary films last year reached 500 million yuan ($76.3 million).

China shot 16 documentary films last year, 13 of which were screened in cinemas. Among the 13, The Road to Revival, A Sage of the Sea and The Bund topped the box-office receipts list with 2 million yuan ($0.31 million), 600,000 yuan ($91,560) and 500,000 yuan ($76,300) respectively.

Despite the overall growth of the documentary film sector, none of China's documentary films recovered its cost through box-office income. On the other hand, the total box-office receipts of China's feature films last year roared to over 10 billion yuan ($1.53 billion) and that of some top-flight directors, such as Jiang Wen and Feng Xiaogang, jumped to 600 million yuan ($91.56 million).

The report said that there were 98 TV documentary programs aired last year, covering 13,219 hours in all. Currently, advertisements are still the biggest profit source for most channels.

In 2010, the American film Jackass 3D ranked top among the documentaries presented in North American theaters with $117 million in revenue.

French documentary Océans ranked second with $19.44 million and Chouchou third with $7.32 million. In terms of documentary films broadcast on TV, the total revenue of America's Discovery Channel amounted to $3.7 billion, an increase of 9 percent over last year.

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