Executive Summary The State of the Media Report is a quarterly assessment of the media environment in Zambia. This edition covers the third quarter of 2021 i.e. July-September. This assessment and record describes the media trends in Zambia during the period and was prepared under the auspices of the MISA Zambia Chapter. This report includes a number of interesting occurrences that added new developments, twists and opportunities alike for the overall media environment in Zambia. The socio-political environment was generally calm with only one reported incident of violence/harassment against media houses/practitioners, a continuation of the positive trend observed in the second quarter. This positive outlook was further bejeweled with progressive pronouncements from the newly elected government headed by President Hakainde Hichilema who stated the said in his victory speech and during the official opening of the National Assembly. The quarter under review was mainly characterized by electoral activities which relied on the media as a facilitator because of a third, vicious wave of COVID-19, with severe restrictions on public gatherings and political rallies. The media encountered various challenges in their coverage of the general elections held under the new normal while high polarization of the media landscape and unfair coverage by public media remained topical. The legal environment did not record any significant developments or recorded incidents of application of archaic laws against the media outlets. Notably, a victory was scored when the IBA granted Prime Television a Broadcasting license, exactly one year after the Station ceased broadcasting due to what begun as a misunderstanding with government on COVID public service announcements, later escalating into the station’s licence 3