RTM's Mandarin news bulletins are now back to normal; well, almost.

On their news programme at noon today, the bulletin’s visuals as well as Chinese captions and headlines are back.

More than that, the setup has undergone a little revamp.

The news anchor is now in the centre frame and the background no longer includes slides of the news being read.

This change came after an instruction from Communications and Multimedia Minister Salleh Said Keruak for the bulletin to be restored to its ‘original format’ yesterday.

For the past three days, the Mandarin news programme ran without video footage and later without Chinese texts, purportedly a ' punishment ' meted out by RTM's management for airing an unflattering photograph of Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.

The image was displayed when the RTM Mandarin newsreader was reporting on Najib's successful bid in staying PKR's lawsuit against him for allegedly breaking general election spending regulations.

Produced by Malaysiakini, the image showed Najib looking down solemnly, with a collage of other photographs related to 1MDB in the background, including a picture of Penang-born billionaire Jho Low.

On Thursday, viewers began to notice that the Mandarin's news programme at 12pm were made to read continuously without any accompanying video footages.

By Friday, its noon broadcast was also missing Chinese text, with headlines and captions in Malay appearing on the Mandarin news programme.

However, video footage was restored on the 8pm news slot on Friday but the Chinese text was still missing from the broadcast.

Salleh had previously told Malaysiakini that he was unaware of any such instruction coming from his ministry and was looking into the matter.