Digital terrestrial television Digital terrestrial television (DTTV or DTT, or DTTB with "broadcasting") is a technology for terrestrial television in which land-based (terrestrial) television stations broadcast television content by radio waves to televisions in consumers' ...

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark , establish ...

was technically launched in March 2006 after some years of public trials. The official launch was at midnight on 1 November 2009, when analogue broadcasts ceased nationwide. As of June 2020, five national multiplexes are available. MUX 1 is owned by DR but operated by Teracom A/S. They broadcast

free-to-air Free-to-air (FTA) services are television (TV) and radio services broadcast in unencrypted form, allowing any person with the appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring a subscripti ...

channels only. MUX 2 - 5 are owned and operated by

Boxer Boxer most commonly refers to: * Boxer (boxing), a competitor in the sport of boxing *Boxer (dog), a breed of dog Boxer or boxers may also refer to: Animal kingdom * Boxer crab * Boxer shrimp, a small group of decapod crustaceans * Boxer snipe ee ...

broadcasting encrypted pay-TV only.

History

Pre-launch

In 1999, a trial was launched in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

and

Zealand Zealand ( da, Sjælland ) at 7,031 km2 is the largest and most populous island in Denmark proper (thus excluding Greenland and Disko Island, which are larger in size). Zealand had a population of 2,319,705 on 1 January 2020. It is the 1 ...

. Another trial was launched in 2002 on northern

Jutland Jutland ( da, Jylland ; german: Jütland ; ang, Ēota land ), known anciently as the Cimbric or Cimbrian Peninsula ( la, Cimbricus Chersonesus; da, den Kimbriske Halvø, links=no or ; german: Kimbrische Halbinsel, links=no), is a peninsula of ...

, broadcasting the three public service channels and an experimental regional channel called "TV 2/Nord-Digital". In June 2005, a broad majority consisting of Venstre, the Conservative People's Party, the

Social Democrats Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote so ...

, the Radical Liberal Party, the Socialist People's Party and

Danish People's Party The Danish People's Party ( da, Dansk Folkeparti, DPP/DF) is a nationalist and right-wing populist political party in Denmark. It was formed in 1995 by former members of the Progress Party (FrP). The DPP lent its support to the Venstre– C ...

agreed that the analogue broadcasts would cease in October 2009.

National launch

The technical launch was made on 31 March 2006, after some months of national trials with one multiplex covering the entire country. It offered the national analogue channels

DR1 DR1 (DR Et) is the flagship television channel of the DR (broadcaster), Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR). It became Denmark's first television station when it began broadcasting in 1951 – at first only for an hour a day three times a we ...

and TV 2, as well as

DR2 DR2 (DR To) is the second television channel operated by the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR) in Denmark. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more "highbrow" programmes than the more mainstream and popular DR1. Like ...

, a stream for signed simulcasts of news programmes on the three other channels and the MHP services DR extra and TV 2 Extra. On 19 February 2008

DR Update DR Update was a Danish 24-hour television news channel broadcast by DR. Although the channel was primarily distributed via the web, it was also available on regular broadcast television from the start on satellite from Canal Digital and from some ...

started broadcasting on the simulcast channel when this channel was not used for simulcasting (between 17 and 20 o'clock). The multiplex was operated by DIGI-TV I/S, a

joint-venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acce ...

between DR and TV 2. On 11 June 2007 the

Danish Ministry of Culture The Minister for Culture of Denmark ( da, Kulturminister) is the Danish political minister office responsible for culture, head of the Ministry of Culture of Denmark. The political responsibility for culture, as well as church and education, was ...

announced that the six parties had agreed on how the extension of the network of a total of 8 multiplexes would continue. Four multiplexes (MUX 3-6) would be given to a commercial gatekeeper which would be required to have a varied offering and would be chosen through a "beauty contest". DIGI-TV, would be given another multiplex, MUX 2, in addition to its MUX 1. MUX 2 would be carrying the children and culture channel from DR, a parliament channel, more airtime for the TV 2 regions and

community television Community television is a form of mass media in which a television station is owned, operated or programmed by a community group to provide television programs of local interest known as local programming. Community television stations are most c ...

. MUX7 was on 29 June 2009 allocated to use for mobile broadband, set to launch in 2013. The fate of MUX8 was not decided. On 27 March 2008

got the gatekeeper rights for MUX 3, 4 and 5.

went on-air on 2 February 2009 with its three commercial multiplexes. The commercial gatekeeper would be required to carry at least one channel from neighbouring countries and a local channel. A maximum of 25 percent of the capacity could be used for "high-pay" channels (such as

Canal+ Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flo ...

). The official launch was made on 1 November 2009, which also marked the launch of the new public channels

DR Ramasjang DR Ramasjang is a Danish television channel owned by DR targeting children aged 3–10. The channel is named after the Danish word , which refers to a loud or festive uproar, similar to the English word ''hullabaloo''. History DR presented thei ...

DR K DR K was a Danish free-to-air television channel owned by state broadcaster DR. Its programming was centred towards culture and history. History Originally conceived as a channel dedicated to history, the channel was first presented in 2005 in t ...

DR HD DR HD was a Danish high-definition television High-definition television (HD or HDTV) describes a television system which provides a substantially higher image resolution than the previous generation of technologies. The term has been used since ...

(replaced by DR3 in January 2013) and a 24‑hour version of

(replaced by

DR Ultra DR Ultra was a Danish national television channel for children aged 9–14, produced by the public service broadcaster, DR. The channel launched on 4 March 2013, replacing DR Update. All DR-owned shows for DR Ultra and DR Ramasjang are set in ...

in March 2013). Also on this day, Copenhagen-based company Open Channel Aps launched a trial multiplex, "MUXCPH", with local channels such as

Kanal København Kanal København (Channel Copenhagen) is a Danish commercial television channel, which can be seen in most parts of Denmark. It is a Pay-TV and Cable TV channel delivered by providers like Stofa, Waoo!, Dansk Bredbaand and others. It is quite un ...

Post-launch

Expansion

got its fourth multiplex: MUX6 on 1 November 2010. The conditions at the time were that 15% of the capacity should be given to DR. 35% to other companies, where

were free to use the remaining 50% themselves for DVB-H-services. However, these conditions were dropped on 10 August 2012. It was announced MUX6 would use DVB-T2 for HDTV, set to launch in October 2013. On 26 September 2013 Boxer launched its fourth multiplex - MUX6 - which uses DVB-T2 with MPEG-4. On 1 July 2011 the

announced that MUX8 were to be used for digital TV. A gatekeeper as well as a launch date for MUX8 has yet to be announced. On 1 November 2012 Open Channel's trial of MUXCPH was replaced with the trial of a new DVB-T2 trial multiplex, MUXCPH-2. Now broadcasting both local channel

as well as international channel

France 24 France 24 ( in French) is a French state-owned international news television network based in Paris. Its channels broadcast in French, English, Arabic, and Spanish and are aimed at the overseas market. Based in the Paris suburb of Issy-les-Mo ...

, from the TDC radio tower at Borups Alle in the center of

, the signal can be received by more than 700,000 households. In April 2013, Open Channel got permission to reuse the first MUXCPH for a new DVB-T2 mux with

HEVC High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), also known as H.265 and MPEG-H Part 2, is a video compression standard designed as part of the MPEG-H project as a successor to the widely used Advanced Video Coding (AVC, H.264, or MPEG-4 Part 10). In compar ...

coding and

HbbTV Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV (HbbTV) is both an industry standard ( European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) TS 102 796) and promotional initiative for hybrid digital TV to harmonise the broadcast, Internet Protocol Television ( ...

capabilities.

High-definition

On 11 January 2012 the

MUX1 switched from MPEG-2 to the newer MPEG-4 codec standard. This made it possible to broadcast

and the TV 2 regional channels in 720p HD. Later in the year, on April 1 the commercial MUX5 converted broadcasting from DVB-T to DVB-T2 to use for HDTV. A further focus was placed on HD when, on 5 April 2016, Boxer stopped simulcasting HD and SD versions of the same channels, focusing on HD versions only. In late 2016 and early 2017 DIGI-TV made changes to their two multiplexes making it possible to launch both DR2 and DR K in 720p HD.

2020 changes

In May 2017, the Ministry of Culture proposed two scenarios on what the terrestrial television infrastructure in Denmark could look like after 3 April 2020 when Boxer's gatekeeper rights expire, and the 700 Mhz band switches from TV to mobile broadband. In scenario A, all 5 UHF multiplexes and the single VHF multiplex would be given to the gatekeeper, with the condition of broadcasting free-to-air channels from DR and TV 2. In scenario B, a single UHF multiplex would be given to Digi-TV (the joint-venture between DR and TV 2) to be used for free-to-air broadcasting. The remaining 4 UHF multiplexes as well as the single VHF multiplex would be given to the gatekeeper. In both scenarios it is expected that every multiplex will use DVB-T2 and HEVC. In December 2017, it was announced that scenario B had been chosen, and a new gatekeeper for minimum 4 multiplexes will be chosen through a "beauty contest" which ran through 5 March 2018. On 13 March 2018, the current gatekeeper Boxer was announced as being the only applicant. On 6 June 2018, Boxer was announced as the winner, and they would continue to be the gatekeeper after 3 April 2020. As part of a new media agreement by the Folketing in 2018 with a permanent lower budget for DR, DR announced in 2019 that three of their free-to-air channels would close. On January 2 2020 DR3, DR K, and DR Ultra ceased broadcasting. Due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

it was announced that the national switch-over to DVB-T2 would be postponed to June 2. The argument being that some people (especially the elderly) would not have purchased DVB-T2 equipment, and would be left with no means of keeping up-to-date with new information regarding the pandemic. On 2 June 2020 the number of available multiplexes decreased from 6 to 5, with a switch-over from DVB-T to DVB-T2 on all 5 multiplexes. This made it possible to broadcast DR Ramasjang in HD. The joint-venture DIGI-TV shut down, with the ownership of MUX1 transferred to DR.

Current channels

As of 2 June 2020.

References

{{reflist

External links

DR's information site about digital TV in DenmarkDIGI-TV in English
Television in Denmark