STATE OF THE MEDIA REPORT QUARTER 4, 2020 economic effects such as reduced productivity due to reduction in the workforce attributed to job cuts and cost-saving measures. In spite of this situation, obligations such as license fees, copyright, tax and other statutory obligations were still collected from media outlets, thereby straining the few resources at their disposal. The media were also affected by the continued depreciation of the Kwacha because major inputs in the operations of the media are imported at high cost. Examples of these inputs include newsprint, audio-visual equipment and international news and entertainment programmes, among others. As such, the depreciation of the Kwacha increased the cost of these inputs (which is already high) to astronomical levels. There is need for a review of the sustainability of media outlets based on the travails encountered in the quarter and, indeed, year under review23. This situation is a further validation of findings of the 2019/2020 regional ‘Trust in the media report’ conducted by MISA and discussed in the third-quarter State of the Media Report, where print magazines have suffered most in terms of the negative impact of the transforming media landscape across Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi and remain largely inexistent. Other factors that were noted in the economic environment in the quarter under review include the continuation of electricity load management, which led to power rationing. The load shedding negatively affected media houses as they had to resort to the use of alternative sources of electricity, chief among them generators. This is because most media operations rely on equipment that requires uninterrupted power supply. This includes equipment such as transmitters, studio control units and industrial print presses, among others. As such, interruption of electricity supply puts the media outlets off-air or delays printing of newspapers (with a lot of wastage in some cases), leading to major losses. The cost of maintaining alternative electricity sources such as generators remained high due to the cost of fuel, an essential commodity. The situation was expected to be mitigated by a COVID-19 relief package announced by ZESCO specifically targeted at households and small businesses. However, the threshold announced by the Power Utility Company may have had little impact based on the high usage 23 Scholars have previously called for this review. For example, Banda, F. (2004). Newspapers and magazines-a question of sustainability. Lusaka: MISA. Additionally, according to the Free Press Initiative survey on the impact of COVID-19 on Zambia’s news media, media houses, particularly newspapers, were affected were identified as being most affected by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. P a g e 30 | 56