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Conservatives granted more airtime on Channel 4 and Channel 5's election coverage

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By Gillian West | Social media manager

April 26, 2015 | 2 min read

Channel 4 and Channel 5 have been giving more airtime to the Conservatives than other broadcasters according to research from Cardiff University.

The university's ongoing election coverage survey, which examined bulletins on Channel 5 at 5pm, Channel 4 at 7pm and 10pm on the BBC, ITV and Sky News, found Channel 4 and Channel 5 had given Conservative party voices about a third of election coverage airtime in their main news bulletins.

The BBC and Sky News also featuring Conservative sources speaking for longer than other parties during flagship news shows. ITV, however, was found to give more airtime to Labour.

In terms of the SNP Channel 4 and Channel 5 gave less airtime to the party than other broadcasters. The BBC, ITV and Sky News offered SNP a greater share of coverage revealed researchers.

Thanks to the TV leaders' debates the minor party leaders received a boost in coverage with the university finding striking differences between bulletins in terms of the airtime granted to minor party leaders.

Channel 4's coverage of the leaders was found to be more evenly spread than other broadcasters with Sky news granting more airtime to Nicola Sturgeon than any other leader. Sturgeon also received more airtime on the BBC than Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage.

Ed Miliband and David Cameron had the largest share of appearances in national news, followed by Nigel Farage and Nick Clegg.

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