KUALA LUMPUR, June 28 ― Seven out of 10 news reports carried on three radio channels under national broadcaster Radio Television Malaysia (RTM) prior to the 14th general election were neutral, according to a study by Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (Utar).

But the same study also found that two in 10 RTM reports were still pro-Barisan Nasional (BN), which was the leading slant of the reports ahead of anti-PKR ones.

"Ai FM recorded more pro-BN news than any others,” said Utar's assistant professor Tham Jen Sern in a post-GE14 analysis by the International Islamic University Malaysia Electoral Studies Unit at the latter university's campus here.

Ai FM is a Chinese language station under RTM.

The study had covered 947 news reports in three RTM channels, Ai FM, Traxx FM, and Nasional FM, between 1pm of April 28 and 7pm of May 9, the Polling Day.

It showed that 70.9 per cent of the reports were neutral while 1.2 per cent were balanced or contained responses from both sides.

BN-leaning reports came in at 21.3 per cent while 0.6 per cent was categorised as unfavourable to the coalition.

In comparison, 4.9 per cent reports were critical of PKR or anti-PAS (0.2 per cent).

Of the three stations, Ai FM was the most pro-BN (35.3 per cent of reports), and anti-PKR (10 per cent).

It also showed that the stations, on average, dedicated more airtime to reports favourable to BN, with 80 reports lasting between 31 and 45 seconds.