STATE OF THE MEDIA REPORT QUARTER 3. 2020 There was, also, in the quarter under review, a decline in credit extended to the private sector owing to reduced appetite by banks to lend money because of heightened default risk due to a slump in economic activity27. This bleak economic outlook negatively affected the media in the quarter under review as most media houses are heavily dependent on advertising revenue to support their operations. As such, a reduction in economic activity entailed a reduction in advertising by the producers of goods and services as there was reduced demand from the consumers. This was further worsened by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic which had socio-economic effects such as reduced productivity due to reduction in the workforce in order to implement preventive measures. For some media houses, this entailed reducing the number of staff reporting to the station even for news gathering and production activities28. In spite of this situation, obligations prepared by Free Press Initiative, at least 7% of the media houses effected salary and job cuts, 38% had staff take time off work without pay and 23% downsized operations. 27 This was in spite of a slight decline in commercial interest rates as reported in the BOZ August Monetary Policy Statement 28 According to a survey in a position paper on the impact of COVID-19 on Zambia’s news media 27