Four Sri Lankan television productions have been shortlisted at the 31st Asian Television Awards, across documentary, entertainment, music and news categories.
All four come from the Maharaja Media Network, part of the Capital Maharaja Group. The winners will be announced at a ceremony on 13 and 14 November 2026 at the Hoa Binh Theatre in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam — the awards’ return to Vietnam, confirmed on the organisers’ own site.
The four nominations
| Production | Category | Producer / channel |
|---|---|---|
| Save the Sri Lankan Leopard | Best Documentary Series | Newsfirst, for Sirasa TV |
| Sirasa Ruu Raa | Best Entertainment (One-Off/Annual) | MTV Channel and Stein Studios, for Sirasa TV |
| Shakthi Crown | Best Music Programme | MTV Channel and Stein Studios, Shakthi TV |
| The Unseen Storm – When Systems Fail | Best Single News Story or Programme (10 minutes or less) | Newsfirst |
The fields
The competition is dominated by large regional broadcasters. Save the Sri Lankan Leopard is up against entries including China’s Green Revolution, ZEE5’s Hathras – 16 Days, Radio Television Hong Kong’s Lin Zexu: Beyond the Humen Opium Destruction and SBS’s Marshmallow Counseling.
Sirasa Ruu Raa competes in a category made up largely of major gala broadcasts, among them CNN International’s New Year’s Eve Live, the Gala Night of the 28th Shanghai International Film Festival and Indosiar’s Konser Raya 31.
Shakthi Crown is shortlisted alongside Coke Studio Philippines Season 9, TV5’s Vibe+ and Yeah1’s Y-Concert, while The Unseen Storm is in a news field that includes Born in the USA: The Battle for Birthright Citizenship, CNN All Access’s India’s Toxic Threads and The Battle to Save the Taokas Language.
A note on sourcing
The only account of these nominations available at the time of writing is NewsFirst’s — and NewsFirst is itself part of the Maharaja Media Network and the named producer of two of the four nominated programmes. It is reporting on its own group.
LankaNewz confirmed independently, from the Asian Television Awards’ official site, that the 31st edition is the current cycle, that its nominee lists have been published and that the ceremony returns to Vietnam. The individual Sri Lankan nominations could not be checked against the organisers’ published shortlists, which are served through a script-driven page that could not be read directly.
