Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC)

The Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC) is Sri Lanka’s state radio broadcaster and its oldest electronic-media institution. The country’s official radio service began on 16 December 1925 and was reorganised as a separate government department under the name Radio Ceylon on 1 October 1949. On 5 January 1967, Radio Ceylon became a public corporation under the Ceylon Broadcasting Corporation Act No. 37 of 1966, with Neville D. Jayaweera as its first chairman and Director General. Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake ceremonially opened the new corporation. It took the name Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation after the country became a republic in 1972.

SLBC and government sources describe the 1925 service as Asia’s first radio station. That superlative is not historically reliable: India’s official broadcasting chronology records programmes transmitted by the Radio Club of Bombay in June 1923, the Calcutta Radio Club in November 1923 and the Madras Presidency Radio Club in July 1924. SLBC is therefore more accurately described as Sri Lanka’s first radio service and one of South Asia’s oldest broadcasting institutions.

Media assets

National and domestic services: Swadeshiya Sevaya, Welenda Sevaya, City FM, Zero FM, Thamil Sevai, Thendral FM and Radio Sri Lanka, its English-language commercial service

Regional and community services: Rajarata Sewaya, Ruhunu Sewaya, Kandurata FM, Wayamba Radio, Yaal FM, Pirei FM and Dambana Radio

International and specialist services: Asia Service, Middle East Service and Colombo International Radio

Ownership and governance

SLBC is a state-owned statutory corporation established under the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation Act. It operates within the government’s mass-media portfolio and is listed as an institution of the Ministry of Mass Media.

Section 6 of the Act provides that the Corporation shall consist of five members appointed by the Minister, one of whom shall be designated the Chairman. Unlike the Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation, whose board includes representatives of specified external institutions, SLBC has no seats filled through nomination by universities, professional bodies or other independent institutions. The Act does disqualify sitting Members of Parliament from appointment, and bars anyone with a business transaction with the Corporation, but imposes no further limitation on ministerial choice.

Members nominally serve four-year terms and are eligible for reappointment. Those terms offer little protection from executive intervention: the minister may remove any member by gazette order without stating a reason and appoint replacements to vacancies or temporary positions.

The Director General is formally appointed by the corporation in consultation with the minister and normally serves for five years. Reappointment requires ministerial concurrence, and the Director General may be removed at any time with the minister’s prior approval. The corporation may also appoint its chairman to perform the Director General’s duties, subject to ministerial concurrence.

The Act gives the executive direct authority over institutional policy. Section 5 provides that, in the exercise of its functions and powers, the Corporation shall comply with the general policy of the Government with respect to broadcasting and shall comply with any general or special directions given by the Minister pursuant to that policy. This creates a direct statutory channel for executive intervention in the corporation’s activities.

The Act also requires SLBC to submit its annual accounts, Auditor General’s report, annual activity report and estimates of income and expenditure to the minister. Section 31 requires ministerial approval for the corporation’s annual programme of work involving capital expenditure. That provision concerns capital projects rather than approval of individual programmes or the editorial schedule; editorial and policy influence arises more directly from the government-direction power in Section 5.

Leadership has continued to change with political administrations. Former Member of Parliament and long-standing broadcaster Hudson Samarasinghe was appointed chairman in 2021. Following the National People’s Power presidential election victory, Professor Uditha Gayashan Gunasekara was appointed on 24 September 2024 by Media Minister Vijitha Herath. Gunasekara is a senior lecturer in drama, cinema and television at the University of Kelaniya and a former president of the National Photographic Art Society. He remained SLBC chairman at the end of July 2026.

A proposed institutional merger was abandoned during the review period. On 27 November 2023, Cabinet approved in principle the establishment of a single public company through the merger of SLBC and the Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation. On 9 June 2025, Cabinet concluded that the expected benefits would not be realised because the two organisations use different broadcasting technologies, require different studio arrangements and operate transmission towers at separate locations. It decided that they should remain distinct state enterprises while developing individual strategic business plans.

Source of funding and budget

SLBC operates through a mixture of commercial income, state financing, asset-related grants and other revenue. Its principal operating activity is the sale of airtime.

The latest financial statements that could be directly verified for this profile cover 2023. They record sales of LKR 667.94 million, other operating income of LKR 391.96 million, an operating loss of LKR 170.04 million, a loss after tax of LKR 542.92 million, and a total comprehensive loss of LKR 646.80 million. The Auditor General issued a qualified opinion, identifying deficiencies affecting accounting records, assets, receivables, procurement, property management and compliance.

The large difference between the operating loss and the final loss arose primarily from LKR 349.90 million in compensation connected with a voluntary retirement scheme. A total of 233 employees left through the scheme. At the end of 2023, SLBC reported 317 permanent and 62 contract employees, compared with a combined workforce of 659 at the end of 2022.

The 2023 statements record a LKR 300 million Treasury transfer that was capitalised. They also recognise LKR 69.51 million through amortisation of earlier government grants. A further LKR 154.42 million represented amortisation of the foreign-funded Trincomalee project grant associated with Deutsche Welle and should not be treated as Sri Lankan state funding.

SLBC also received money from the Urban Development Authority in connection with the transfer of its Ekala transmission-station land. Cabinet records value the land transaction at LKR 1.286 billion and state that LKR 525 million had been received by October 2024. These payments are consideration for transferring a corporation asset, not ordinary state subsidy, although Cabinet authorised part of the proceeds for the voluntary retirement scheme and refurbishment.

The governing Act retains provisions for licensing radio receivers and registering businesses that import, manufacture or sell receiving sets. The 2023 statements, however, record no government grant for licence fees in either 2022 or 2023; such a grant had amounted to LKR 345 million in 2021. The accounts separately record LKR 5.81 million from licensing importers and dealers. No evidence was identified that a general household radio-receiver fee now operates as a significant recurring source of SLBC income.

On a conservative calculation that counts both the LKR 300 million Treasury transfer and the LKR 69.51 million recognised through government-grant amortisation as state support, qualifying state finance represented approximately 27% of SLBC’s total 2023 recognised income plus the Treasury transfer. Commercial airtime sales and other non-state operating receipts therefore remained the larger source of resources. This calculation excludes the Urban Development Authority’s land-transfer payments and the foreign-funded Trincomalee grant.

The available audited evidence consequently does not support coding SLBC as predominantly state-funded. Its financial position is nevertheless fragile, and its dependence on restructuring support and asset disposals means that the funding indicator should be reassessed when directly verifiable audited accounts for 2024 or 2025 become available.

Editorial independence

The SLBC Act contains formal public-service requirements. Section 3 directs the corporation to carry on and develop a broadcasting service in the public interest, to exercise supervision and control over its programmes, and to satisfy itself as far as practicable that programmes maintain a proper balance in subject matter and a high general standard of quality, and that news is presented with due accuracy and impartiality and with due regard to the public interest.

Those obligations are not protected by an independent governance structure. All governing members are appointed by the minister and may be removed without reasons. The Director General is appointed in consultation with the minister and may be removed with ministerial approval. Most importantly, Section 5 legally requires SLBC to follow government broadcasting policy and general or special ministerial directions. The Act’s impartiality duty and its government-compliance duty sit in the same statute, with no mechanism for resolving a conflict between them.

Assessments obtained by State Media Monitor from Sri Lankan journalists and media analysts in March 2023, September 2024 and July 2025 describe an editorial agenda that regularly reflects the priorities of the administration in office, with editorial and managerial appointments frequently drawn from political or bureaucratic circles.

No publicly accessible SLBC-specific editorial charter, independent ombudsman, external editorial complaints body or mechanism empowered to audit political balance and investigate government interference was identified. The statutory financial audit and parliamentary reporting requirements do not provide independent supervision of editorial performance.

AI and digital policy

SLBC distributes content through terrestrial radio, online streaming, its website and social-media channels.

No publicly accessible SLBC editorial policy was identified governing generative artificial intelligence, synthetic voices, automated production, verification of AI-assisted material or disclosure to audiences. Nor was a binding national framework identified that imposes state-media-specific editorial rules for these technologies.

Sri Lankan media organisations and journalists were discussing draft voluntary guidelines for the ethical use of AI during 2026, including proposals for human editorial accountability, disclosure of substantially AI-generated material and enhanced verification for Sinhala- and Tamil-language output. These remained proposed professional guidelines rather than binding rules for SLBC.

The issue is already relevant within Sri Lanka’s state-media sector. In 2024, the Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation broadcast AI-generated versions of two serving news presenters and reported earlier use of generative AI for video, image and audio production. No independently corroborated equivalent use by SLBC was identified during this review.

Classification rationale

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

It is state-owned and state-governed. It is a statutory corporation within the government’s mass-media portfolio. All five governing members are appointed by the responsible minister, who selects the chairman and may remove any member without giving a reason. Appointment and removal of the Director General are also subject to ministerial involvement.

Its editorial agenda is subject to state control. Although the Act imposes formal accuracy, impartiality and public-interest duties, it simultaneously requires SLBC to comply with government broadcasting policy and any general or special ministerial directions. No independent governing or oversight structure counterbalances those powers, and RSF and SMM expert assessments find the broadcaster to have very limited editorial autonomy.

The funding condition is not met. The 2023 audited statements record commercial sales of LKR 667.94 million and other operating income of LKR 391.96 million. Even when the LKR 300 million Treasury transfer and LKR 69.51 million in government-grant amortisation are both counted as state support, the resulting share remains substantially below the Matrix’s more-than-50% threshold. Asset-sale proceeds from the Urban Development Authority and the foreign-funded Trincomalee grant do not constitute direct Sri Lankan state subsidy.

The funding result is less distant from the threshold than at Sri Lanka’s other commercially financed state broadcasters and must be monitored closely. SLBC has sustained major losses, relied on Treasury restructuring support and used proceeds from the transfer of public assets to meet retirement, refurbishment and temporary operating expenses.

July 2026