State of the media report Q1-2021 Zambia20. The onus is therefore on media houses to devise other strategies of collecting information, especially identity details. Also notable in the quarter under review was the release of the 2020 Information and Communication Technologies Sector Annual Market Report on 15th March 202021. The report is critical to the media sector also as it indicates certain audience insights that media houses can take advantage of to improve information dissemination, especially in the COVID era where ICTs are key to communication. Some of the highlights of the report include the increased access and utilisation of ICT services in the country, particularly mobile and internet subscriptions, attributed mainly to the new normal in which use of virtual technology was encouraged to prevent the spread of COVID-19. For example, active mobile telephone subscriptions increased from 17.2 million in 2019 to 19.1 million in 2020. Similarly, active internet subscriptions increased from 9.2 million in 2019 to 10.3 million in 2020, indicating an improvement in the internet penetration rate from 52.9% in 2019 to 57.6% in 2020. The improvement in the internet penetration rate was attributed to higher investments among service providers leading to adoption and extensive coverage of 3G/4G networks. The increased uptake of internet services was noted during the COVID-19 pandemic leading to the increased penetration rate highlighted above. Further, the report records that the monthly cost of at least one gigabyte bundle of mobile data in Zambia ranked ‘third’ when compared to sixteen countries in the region. These statistics are important for the media sector which needs to adopt technologies aimed at meeting the new means and ways of accessing content used by consumers of media products. This is especially important in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic which as indicated in the 2020 third quarter State of the Media Report has negatively affected the media’s ability to monetise content and generate sufficient revenue to sustain their operations, especially in the absence of stimulus funding. This was also a trend noted in the economic environment section above. As such, based on the information in the annual report, media houses need to rethink advertising strategies by targeting online markets and mobile internet users by integrating such technology in their regular broadcasts. It is no wonder that certain media houses have already implemented certain new strategies noted during the quarter such as e-newspapers22, online advertising as well as podcasts, mobile applications and 20 See https://www.osac.gov/Country/Zambia/Content/Detail/Report/699fecc2-0e16-430a-a00f1867996b3e1f 21 Available at https://www.zicta.zm/storage/posts/attachments/3hvcdeZgSqex6Qkvv9WhbpDwffMQE4ueT49ITi1H.pdf 22 The Zambia Daily Mail and News Diggers Newspapers continued to operate an electronic version of their publication, requiring people to subscribe at a minimal fee in order to access news content. The Zambia Daily 28