Digital terrestrial television in Denmark
Digital terrestrial television in Denmark was technically launched in March 2006 after some years of public trials. The official launch was at midnight on November 1, 2009, where the analogue broadcasts shut down 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 channels only. MUX 2 - 5 are owned and operated by Boxer broadcasting encrypted pay-TV only.
History
Pre-launch
In 1999, a trial was launched in Copenhagen and Zealand. Another trial was launched in 2002 on northern Jutland, 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, the Radical Liberal Party, the Socialist People's Party and Danish People's Party agreed that the analogue broadcasts would cease in October 2009.
National launch
The technical launch was made on March 31, 2006 after some months of national trials with one multiplex covering the entire country. It offered the national analogue channels DR1 and TV 2, as well as DR2, a stream for signed simulcasts of news programmes on the three other channels and the MHP services DR extra and TV 2 Extra. February 19, 2008, DR Update started broadcasting on the simulcast channel when this channel was not used for simulcasting. The multiplex was operated by DIGI-TV I/S, a joint-venture between DR and TV 2.On June 11, 2007 the Danish Ministry of Culture announced that the six parties had agreed on how the extension of the network of a total of 8 multiplexes would continue. Four multiplexes 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. MUX7 was on June 29, 2009 allocated to use for mobile broadband, set to launch in 2013. The fate of MUX8 was not decided.
On March 27, 2008 Boxer got the gatekeeper rights for MUX 3, 4 and 5.
Boxer 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.
The official launch was made on 1 November 2009, which also marked the launch of the new public channels DR Ramasjang, DR K, DR HD and a 24‑hour version of DR Update. Also on this day, Copenhagen-based company Open Channel Aps launched a trial multiplex, "MUXCPH", with local channals such as Kanal København.
Post-launch
Expansion
got its fourth multiplex: MUX6 on November 1, 2010. The conditions at the time were that 15% of the capacity should be given to DR. 35% to other companies, where Boxer were free to use the remaining 50% themselves for DVB-H-services. However, these conditions were dropped on August 10, 2012. It was announced MUX6 would use DVB-T2 for HDTV, set to launch in October 2013. On September 26, 2013 Boxer launched its fourth multiplex - MUX6 - which uses DVB-T2 with MPEG-4.On July 1, 2011 the Danish Ministry of Culture 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 November 1, 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 Kanal København as well as international channel France 24, from the TDC radio tower at Borups Alle in the center of Copenhagen, 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 coding and HbbTV capabilities.
High-definition
On January 11, 2012 the free-to-air MUX1 switched from MPEG-2 to the newer MPEG-4 codec standard. This made it possible to broadcast DR1 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 Boxer on April 5, 2016 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 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 it was announced that the national switch-over to DVB-T2 would be postponed to June 2. The argument being that some people 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 June 2, 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.