Malaysian media stocks look lacklustre as advertising expenditure (adex) growth was reported almost flat in May with more spenders switching to TV advertisements from print, analysts said.

Citing reports by Nielsen Media Research, Alliance Bank Group’s stocks research unit rated the sector, which includes stocks such as Star Publications, Media Chinese International Ltd (MCIL) and Media Prima, as ‘neutral.’

A strong 6.4 percent growth in free-to-air (FTA) TV advertising in May helped to offset a 3.9 percent decline in newspaper advertisements.

Overall, total adex grew 0.5 percent, excluding Pay TV, in May compared to same period last year.

“We remain ‘neutral’ on the sector as we feel that it still lacks re-rating catalysts given our expectation of an overall softer adex environment in 2013,” Alliance Research said.

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