Is mobile news firmly entrenched in the public mind?
SMS news in Sri Lanka, as a concept, is now exactly three years old, but it started to reach 10,000 people just 21 months ago. Five months later, 200,000 people had subscribed with two news providers. The situation of six news providers (eight if you include foreign news from CNN and NDTV) reaching 400,000 odd subscribers on seven telecom networks – a situation of some stability – occurred just nine months ago. (One network launched seven services including CNN and NDTV at the time. Very recently the government Information Dept and the govt Media Centre for National Security both started SMS news on another network, so that makes it 10. In terms of subscribers numbers now: Ada Derena – 250,000, JNW – 145,000, Daily Mirror – 25,000, Lankapuvath -25,000, Daily News – 20,000. Print media circulation in comparision – Daily Mirror 35,000 – 60,000; Sunday Times 120,000; Lankadeepa (Sunday) 150,000) Why this timeline and detail? It gives an indication of how new or not the medium is. My main
