How to Listen to Sri Lankan Radio Online

Published 12 September 2026

You can stream Sri Lankan radio live in any browser, with no download and no account: open 72FM's Sri Lanka page, choose a station and press play. Sri Lanka has one of the oldest radio traditions in Asia — the station once called Radio Ceylon was heard across the whole subcontinent — and today a busy dial in Sinhala, Tamil and English.

SLBC: from Radio Ceylon to today

Broadcasting in Sri Lanka began in the 1920s, and for decades Radio Ceylon was one of the most listened-to stations in South Asia — its commercial service famous far beyond the island for playing Hindi film songs to listeners in India. Its successor, the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC), still runs a family of public services:

• Swadeshiya Sewaya — the national service in Sinhala, with news, culture, drama and music.
• Welanda Sewaya — the commercial service, with popular music and entertainment.
• Tamil National Service — the SLBC's Tamil-language service, among the most-voted Sri Lankan stations in the directory.
• City FM and Radio Sri Lanka — more of the SLBC's family of stations.

The commercial dial

Since private radio opened up in the 1990s, commercial FM has taken much of the audience.

• Hiru FM — one of the country's most popular Sinhala stations, with music, news and talk.
• Sirasa FM — Sinhala music, entertainment and news, and one of the best-known names on the dial.
• Y FM — youth-oriented Sinhala radio, and the most-voted Sri Lankan station in the directory.
• Sitha FM, V FM and Siyatha FM — more Sinhala music and entertainment.
• Lakhanda — music, news and documentaries.
• Yes FM, Sun FM and Gold FM — English-language stations, with Gold FM leaning towards classic hits.

Tamil radio

Sri Lanka's Tamil community, in the north and east, in the hill country and in Colombo, has its own stations. Alongside the SLBC's Tamil National Service, Tube Tamil FM from the Northern Province streams Tamil and South Indian music, and Lankasri FM plays Tamil music for listeners at home and abroad. For radio from Tamil Nadu, the Indian radio guide goes further.

The sounds that come from here

Old songs. The Sinhala songs of the 1950s to the 1980s — gentle, melodic, often drawing on North Indian classical music — have a huge audience, and Parani Gee ("old songs") streams nothing else. Many commercial stations keep an evening slot for them.

Baila. The island's party music, with Portuguese roots from the colonial era and a rhythm made for weddings and dances, is the sound of every celebration. Expect it around the Sinhala and Tamil New Year in April.

Film and pop music. Sinhala and Tamil film songs, and today's Sri Lankan pop, fill the daytime playlists of the commercial stations.

Religious programming. In a country of Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and Christians, radio carries programming for all of them, and on religious holidays much of the dial changes its sound.

Cricket

Cricket is close to a national religion, and following a match on the radio is a long-standing habit — commentary in Sinhala, Tamil and English has been part of Sri Lankan broadcasting for generations. Whether a particular match streams outside the country is the broadcaster's rights decision.

Listening from abroad

Hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankans work in the Gulf, and large communities live in Italy, the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada, including one of the largest Tamil diasporas in the world. Online radio is how many of them keep up with the news, the songs and the language. Everything in the directory streams internationally in the ordinary way; expat radio covers this habit.

Sound quality

Sri Lankan streams are mostly 64kbps (Y FM and Sirasa FM) or 128kbps (Hiru FM, Sitha FM and the SLBC services), with V FM and Lakviru Radio at 192kbps. On a phone, 64kbps sounds fine; for music through good speakers, pick the higher bitrates. Radio audio quality and bitrate explains what the numbers mean.

A route in

1. Hiru FM or Sirasa FM, for Sinhala radio as most of the country hears it.
2. The SLBC Tamil National Service or Tube Tamil FM, for Tamil Sri Lanka.
3. Swadeshiya Sewaya, for the public broadcaster that started it all.
4. Parani Gee in the evening, for the old songs.

All of them are on the Sri Lanka page, free, an hour a day without an account. For the rest of South Asia, Indian radio online, Pakistani radio online and Nepali radio online are the next steps.

Listen now: All stations from Sri Lanka