Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Limited (ANCL)

The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Limited (ANCL), commonly known as Lake House, is one of Sri Lanka’s oldest and largest newspaper-publishing groups. It was formed as a joint-stock company by D. R. Wijewardene in 1926, consolidating newspapers that he had acquired or developed during the preceding decade. The company moved into its Lake House headquarters in Colombo in 1929 and publishes in Sinhala, English and Tamil.

Its principal English-language daily, the Daily News, was launched in 1918 after Wijewardene acquired and renamed the financially troubled Ceylonese. It is one of Sri Lanka’s longest-running English-language daily newspapers, but not the country’s oldest English-language newspaper of any kind. The Sunday Observer traces its lineage to the Colombo Observer, established in 1834, while the present Sunday publication format dates from 1928.

The company passed into state control in 1973 under the Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Limited (Special Provisions) Law No. 28 of 1973. Unlike Sri Lanka’s statutory broadcasting corporations, ANCL was not created by the state: it was an existing private company whose ownership and governance were restructured by law. It retained a corporate form and minority private shareholders after the takeover.

Media assets

Daily newspapers: Daily News in English, Dinamina in Sinhala and Thinakaran in Tamil

Weekend newspapers: Sunday Observer in English, Silumina in Sinhala and Vaaramanjari in Tamil

Periodicals: ANCL’s current corporate periodicals page lists Sarasaviya, Mihira, Tharunie, Budusarana and Subasetha. Its current advertising specifications also list Maanchu as a tabloid publication

Ownership and governance

ANCL is a public limited liability company controlled by the Sri Lankan state. The 1973 Special Provisions Law required not less than 75% of all shares to vest in the Public Trustee on behalf of the government. It limited all remaining individual holdings and provided for the continuation of minority share ownership.

The latest detailed public ownership breakdown shows that the Public Trustee held 87.56% of the company, with additional small holdings divided among public institutions and individual shareholders.

The 1973 law provides for a five-member Board of Directors. As long as the Public Trustee holds at least 51% of the shares, three directors are appointed by the Public Trustee and two are elected by the other shareholders. The Public Trustee may not participate or vote in the election of those two directors. The arrangement therefore preserves limited minority-shareholder representation while giving the state control of the board majority. Appointed directors may be removed by the Public Trustee.

ANCL’s current leadership page lists Gamini Warushamana as Chairman and Managing Director, together with directors responsible for editorial affairs, finance, legal affairs and operations. Warushamana assumed duties on 25 September 2024, immediately after the change of presidential administration. A former Sunday Observer journalist, he has also worked at the Department of Census and Statistics and in development and research programmes. He remained Chairman and Managing Director in July 2026.

The September 2024 transition was part of a broader turnover across Sri Lanka’s state-media sector. New leaders were installed at ANCL, the Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation, the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation and the Independent Television Network within days of the change of government. The pattern illustrates how the leadership of the country’s principal state-media organisations continues to track political transitions.

The Special Provisions Law gives the Public Trustee extensive corporate powers. The Public Trustee controls the state shareholding, appoints the board majority, may restrict or invalidate certain share transfers and must consent to amendments of the company’s memorandum and articles unless the change is made directly by ministerial regulation.

Source of funding and budget

ANCL generates income through newspaper advertising, copy sales and subscriptions, commercial and digital printing, content and related services, property and other commercial activities. Advertising remains its principal operating income source.

The latest available Auditor General report covers the financial year ending 31 December 2024. It records an operating profit of LKR 23.785 million, compared with LKR 31.365 million in 2023. Newspaper-advertising income increased by 6%, but other income fell by 55% and commercial-printing income by 41%. The gross profit margin rose from 56% to 58%, while the reported net profit ratio fell from 2% to 1%. The Auditor General issued a qualified opinion and identified deficiencies involving accounting treatment, reconciliation of balances, debt recovery, statutory payments, recruitment procedures and internal controls.

ANCL’s 2023 return to operating profit followed a loss of LKR 197.358 million in 2022. The Auditor General attributed the improvement principally to a LKR 300 million government grant provided for a voluntary retirement scheme. The grant was governed by a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Mass Media and was tied to workforce restructuring and the submission of corporate, strategic and organisational plans. It was a substantial one-off intervention rather than evidence of a regular operating subsidy at the same level.

The company also receives significant state-derived advertising. The 2024 audit refers to a Cabinet decision of 21 December 2021 instructing state and semi-state institutions to place their newspaper advertising with Lake House. The same policy required public institutions purchasing advertising in other media to allocate at least 25% of the relevant media-advertising estimate across Lake House, the Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation, the Independent Television Network and the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation. Government-advertising revenue was included in the incentive targets of ANCL’s advertising and revenue staff.

Under the State Media Matrix, state advertising counts as direct state support. It cannot therefore be treated as ordinary private-sector commercial revenue merely because ANCL records it as advertising income. The audited material does not, however, disclose how much of total advertising revenue came from state and semi-state institutions. Nor does it demonstrate that the combined value of grants and public advertising exceeded the Matrix’s more-than-50% threshold during 2024.

ANCL also owns substantial property. The Auditor General identifies an eight-acre site at Hokandara, purchased in 1985 and revalued at LKR 733 million in 2021, which remained unused at the end of the audited period. The company has indicated that arrangements were being considered for more effective use of the land.

On the evidence presently available, predominant state funding is not established. ANCL receives both direct government assistance and privileged access to state advertising, but its full revenue composition is not publicly disaggregated sufficiently to show that qualifying state support exceeds half of its annual budget. The funding finding should be reviewed if ANCL publishes a detailed revenue breakdown separating government advertising, private advertising, circulation, printing and grant income.

Editorial independence

ANCL’s governance creates strong opportunities for political influence. The state holds the controlling shareholding through the Public Trustee, the Public Trustee appoints the majority of the board, and chairmanship changes have closely followed changes of national administration. Assessments obtained by State Media Monitor from Sri Lankan journalists and media analysts describe Lake House coverage as regularly aligned with the political and communications priorities of the government in office.

The 1973 law nevertheless contains a limited statutory protection that must be acknowledged. Section 12 permits the Public Trustee to issue general or special directions to ANCL’s board but expressly excludes directions relating to the editorial policy of, or the free expression of opinion in, any newspaper published by the company. The board is therefore not legally required to comply with a Public Trustee direction that directly concerns editorial policy or free expression.

That protection does not amount to an independent public-service-media framework. The law does not establish an autonomous editorial board, a transparent and independent process for appointing editors, protected tenure for editorial leadership, an editorial ombudsman or an external complaints body empowered to investigate political interference. Nor does it create an independent institution responsible for enforcing the Section 12 limitation. State control of the board majority and executive leadership consequently remains capable of shaping editorial appointments, institutional priorities and newsroom practice indirectly.

AI and digital policy

ANCL distributes content through its newspaper websites, electronic editions, digital-production facilities, video channels and social-media accounts. Its Digital Media Department manages breaking-news publication, title-specific websites, social-media channels and online audience development.

No publicly accessible ANCL-wide editorial policy was identified governing generative artificial intelligence, synthetic media, automated journalism, verification of AI-assisted material, protection against fabricated content or disclosure to readers. No independently corroborated example equivalent to SLRC’s use of synthetic television presenters was identified at ANCL during this review.

Classification rationale

ANCL remains classified Captured Public / State-Managed (CaPu), meeting two of the three State Media Matrix conditions.

It is state-owned and state-governed. The 1973 law requires the Public Trustee to hold at least 75% of the company on behalf of the government. The latest detailed public ownership information, although dating from 2016, places the holding at 87.56%. The Public Trustee appoints three of the five directors and therefore controls the board majority. The chairmanship and executive leadership have also continued to change with national political transitions.

Its editorial agenda is subject to state control in practice. SMM expert assessments describe coverage as aligned with the government in office, while state control of ownership, the board majority and executive appointments provides powerful indirect instruments of editorial influence. No independent editorial-governance or accountability body counterbalances those powers.

Section 12 of the 1973 law is an important countervailing provision because it excludes editorial policy and free expression from the matters on which the Public Trustee may direct the board. It does not alter the classification because it is not supported by independent enforcement, protected editorial appointments or an autonomous complaints and oversight structure, and available assessments continue to find systemic political influence over editorial output.

The funding condition is not demonstrated on current evidence. ANCL obtained a LKR 300 million restructuring grant in 2023 and benefits from mandatory or preferential state advertising. Both qualify as state support under the Matrix. The available accounts do not disclose the value of public advertising separately or show that grants and state advertising together supplied more than half of ANCL’s annual budget. Commercial advertising, circulation, printing and other earned income remain substantial.

The CaPu classification should therefore be retained, but the funding indicator warrants close monitoring. It should be reconsidered towards State-Controlled if a detailed revenue breakdown shows that government grants and state advertising together exceed the Matrix threshold.

July 2026