https://zimbabwe.misa.org Impact of Covid 19 on Media Sustainability March and then high viewership continuing through April before starting a gradual decline in May back to levels of previous years. Figure 1: Covid-19 Television Viewing Dashboard, South Africa [Source: AGB Nielsen Media Research (Pty) Ltd] Community media Community media was hard hit, with an organization representing the community radio sector pleading in June for R25-million in relief for the claimed 200 community radio stations in South Africa.80However, in May, the Media Development and Diversity Agency, already announced a further R10-million in Covid-19 relief funds for community radio stations and community and small commercial publishers, after a first phase in March and April that saw an initial R10-million disbursed in R45 000 packages to “116 community broadcasters and 115 community and SCM publications”.81 Community radio – potentially or actually important to media diversity – in South Africa appears to rely largely on advertising,82 even though the stations are structured as Non-Profit Organisations based mostly in geographic communities which should, in richer countries, contribute to the running of the stations – as corporations do in the U.S. for the local non-profit public radio stations that represent public broadcasting. Community radio stations in South Africa have been categorized as mostly survivalist and best seen as “struggling small, medium 80Glenda Nevill, “Community Radio Calls for COVID-19 Relief,” The Media Online (blog), June 25, 2020, http://themediaonline. co.za/2020/06/community-radio-calls-for-covid-19-relief/. 81Cheryl Langbridge, “MEDIA STATEMENT MDDA” (Media Development and Diversity Agency, May 25, 2020). 82South Africa’s three-tier broadcasting system distinguishes between community radio, the State-owned SABC’s radio stations and the commercial radio sector, and license conditions require non-profit status, but at least some community stations are clearly profitable. 23