all political parties and candidates be entitled to thirty (30) seconds of airtime on the national broadcaster, Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC) for campaign advertisements per day up to 11th August, 2021. Take further notice that the afore stated 30 seconds is the minimum airtime available and that political parties or candidates shall be required to pay for the said advertisements as determined by ZNBC and further that all advertisements should conform to the Electoral Code of Conduct Regulations and ZNBC advertisement guidelines. You are further reminded that ZNBC has availed political parties and candidates access to the following list of programmes on both television and radio as per attachment.10 The argument behind public media serving a wide section of society is based on their very establishment as a public good. This mainly emanates from the fact that public media are funded from public funds collected through general governmental revenues or special income through television levies and grants for example. Secondly, public broadcasting by its nomenclature demands that there should be a wide reach and variety in programming with inclusivity. It is, therefore, critical that all public media outlets endeavour to carry fair content that is representative of the various interests in society as opposed to a particular section only. It is for this reason that media associations have been advocating for the true transformation from a “state broadcaster” into “public broadcaster”11 through harmonisation of the ZNBC and IBA Acts to allow for regulation by the IBA, enhancement of the board appointment processes (such as reinstatement of an independent appointments committee) to devolve or reduce the real or perceived influence of the Information Minister who has power to appoint or dissolve boards as well as 10 Available on the Electoral Commission of Zambia website at https://www.elections.org.zm/2021/07/02/znbc-airtime-allocation-notice-to-all-political-parties-andcandidates-participating-in-the-forthcoming-general-election/ 11 See a survey titled “Public broadcasting in Africa: Zambia” conducted by the Africa Monitoring and Advocacy Project and Open Society Institute Media Program. 23