DR (broadcaster)

History

DR was founded on 1 April 1925 under the name of Radioordningen, changed to Statsradiofonien in 1926, and Danmarks Radio in 1959. The abbreviated form DR has been used in official documents since 2000.

During the German occupation of Denmark in World War II, radio broadcasts were censored – under particularly harsh conditions from August 1943 – leading many Danes to turn to Danish-language broadcasts from the BBC or the illegal press, as well as Swedish radio in 1944–1945.

Statsradiofonien's second radio station, Program 2 (P2), was added in 1951, followed by P3 in 1963. Experimental television broadcasts started in 1949, with regular programming from 1951 and daily programmes from 1954. Colour television test broadcasts were started in March 1967, with the first large-scale colour broadcasting occurring for the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France. Danmarks Radio officially ended "test" transmissions of colour television on 1 April 1970, although it wasn't until 1978 that their last black-and-white television program (TV Avisen) switched to colour.

Danmarks Radio's monopoly on national television lasted until 1988, when TV 2 started broadcasting.

DR added a second television channel, DR2, in August 1996.

On 7 June 2007, DR added an all-day news channel, DR Update, which closed in March 2013.

At the Danish changeover to over-the-air digital signals on 1 November 2009, DR added three new channels to their lineup

In 2013, DR introduced a new logo in which the words "DR" is featured in a white sans-serif font on a black background. This is however used only on some of DR's radio and television stations such as the radio station DR P3 as well as the newly introduced TV channels DR3 (launched January 28, 2013 and replaced DR HD) and DR Ultra (launched March 4, 2013 and replaced DR Update).

Today all six channels are broadcast terrestrially via the digital DVB-T system with encoded MPEG4 compression. Overspill into northern Germany and south-western Sweden occurs.

Rosenkjær Prize

Since 1963, DR had awarded the Rosenkjær Prize (Danish Radio "lectures prize") to a prominent scientist or cultural figure who has shown the ability to make a difficult subject available to the public in lecture form. The prizewinner commits to hold a number of radio lectures. The prize is named after Jens Rosenkjær (1883–1976), Head of State Broadcasting 1937–53. The price is (2008) of DKK 25,000, as of 2009 raised to DKK 40,000

Radio

DR operates four national radio channels, broadcast on FM, as well as DAB and web radio. In 2011 DR began to relaunch all their radio stations. As of March 2015 DR has 8 channels, 4 on both FM and DAB and 8 on DAB. All radio stations can be listened to on DR web radio:

The first trials of DAB were carried out in 1995, with eight channels officially launching in October 2002. The DAB lineup has changed over the years, and as of August 2011, DR broadcasts 7 different DAB channels, including the four channels also broadcast on FM.

Television

DR was Denmark's first television channel. It began broadcasting on 2 October 1951. Since the introduction of DR2 on 30 August 1996 it has been known as DR1 DR2 is the third national subscription-free TV channel in Denmark; it followed the establishment of TV 2 and its sister channel. Competitors derided it in its early years as den hemmelige kanal ("the secret channel") because it could not be seen nationwide at its launch. DR2's traditional specialties are cultural programmes, satirical comedy, in-depth news programmes, documentaries, and a weekly tema-lørdag Saturday thematic strand examining diverse aspects of one chosen subject in a series of linked programmes.

DR operated a dedicated news channel, DR Update, from June 2007 to March 2013. On 1 November 2009, DR launched three new channels:

Changes in 2011 and 2012

In late 2011 DR3 took the place of DR HD. Initially DR3 particularly targeted the age group from 15 to 35. Early in 2012 the news channel DR Update was closed, and DR 2 became the main channel for news and society. Due to falling viewership, however, this concept was soon changed. As with the main DR1 channel, DR2 now airs British detective series, as well as "classic" films (Søndagsklassikeren) on Sunday afternoons (except during the summer). The films are typically British or American ones — films that were well received in the year of their release — from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s; occasionally non-English-language films are aired. British comedy shows — such as Yes, Minister, Yes, Prime Minister and Dad's Army — have also aired. DR2 airs a quality modern movie at 8 p.m. every Friday, while DR3 usually airs modern American films and Jimmy Fallon's variety show.

Friday to Sunday DR3 airs several films, usually starting the first one in the afternoon. DR3 never airs news, and when showing “documentaries”, they are of the trivial Top Shot, Mayday air disaster and Ice Road Truckers genre. DR1 is still the main channel, where most of DR's own productions are aired. Some of them have gained international release, like Forbrydelsen (remade in America as The Killing). As with DR3, several films are aired Fridays to Sundays. After 8 p.m. various Danish game shows offer ordinary people a chance to win a prize of up to 250,000 Danish kroner, currently equivalent to about ₤29,000, €33,500 or $36,000 USD. Few people win the largest prize, however. The fourth DR channel for adults is DR K. It's a bit unclear what the "K" actually stands for. It could be the Danish word for "Classical" , "Cultural" or even "Knowledge". The channel airs films from around the world, combining its offerings with historical or cultural documentaries, as well as opera, theatre and musicals.

Since 2012 DR has also aired two channels for children, DR-Ramasjang, for kids from five to seven years old, and DR Ultra, intended for children a little older.

List of DR television channels (2015)

Sport live is not purchased, but free events like the FIFA World Cup and UEFA Euro are aired together with their main rivals, the equally national owned, semi public service network TV2 network (which airs five national channels and one regional channel. No advertises are aired within films and other programmes, with exception of "natural breakes", like half-time of a football match).

DR hosted the Eurovision Song Contest in 1964, 2001 and 2014.

Geographical terrestrial coverage

All of Denmark is covered for terrestrial reception through the DVB-T & MPEG4 digital protocol. All six channels are unencrypted. Given the low topography of the Danish mainland and islands, so-called overspill is inevitable if every part of the country is to receive coverage. Hence, all DR's channels are available also in northernmost Germany; around 10,000 people with Danish as their native language still live in the German part of the historical Slesvig province. With a common antenna, DR channels can be received as far south as the German City of Kiel. Another million Swedes can receive all of DR's channels. Like the Danish capital city of Copenhagen and its somewhat distant island of Bornholm, the well-populated western part of Scania is located inside DR's coverage area, and many southern Swedes — whose dialect is closer to standard Danish language than to the dialect spoken in northern Sweden — may watch DR1's weather forecast at DR1 DR appears to be aware of this, since they routinely provide temperatures for Scania on the forecasting maps. Swedes who may have difficulties in understanding spoken Danish can often easily learn to read the Danish subtitles.

DR also features Britcrime series (a Scandinavian word for all BBC, ITV and Channel Four criminal dramas, like Midsomer Murders, Inspector Morse and others). The two most popular Danish channels, DR1 and TV2, are usually included in most southern and west-coast Swedish analogue cable TV networks. But to receive all of DR's channels, a common UHF-antenna is required. While this rules out the encrypted TV2, it is easy to combine an antenna — through an digital decoder, with or without a Viaaccess card slot — with an analogue cable network.

Accusations of bias

For over a decade, the Danish People's Party, a nativist and anti-immigrant political party, has criticized DR for alleged bias in its political news coverage, citing the process for appointment to DR's board of directors. In response, DR set up a "watchdog committee" intended to detect and report upon any bias.

The first large-scale scientific content analysis of political news coverage on DR published by the Centre for Journalism at the University of Southern Denmark, studying election news coverage in the years 1994-2007, documented no persistent political bias towards either the left or the right. News coverage of political actors and parties was found to be largely similar to the news coverage on DR's competitor TV 2. The study concluded that political news coverage on both broadcasters was guided by journalistic professional criteria as to the newsworthiness of political actors and political issues, not by partisan considerations.

In 2008, Mikael Rothstein, author and professor of religious history at the University of Copenhagen, was highly critical of DR when it issued a Christian values policy, declaring that Muslims would feel excluded.

Board of directors

DR's board of directors comprises 11 members appointed for a four-year period. Three members, including the chair, are appointed by the Minister of Culture, and six by Parliament, while the employees of DR elect two members. The board has overall responsibility for DR programs and for the hiring of DR's chief executive, the director general, and the remaining management positions.

Relocation of DR and funding crisis

DR has moved all its activities from the Copenhagen region, including radio, TV and the various orchestras to a brand new complex in the northern part of Ørestad, also in Copenhagen. The new building, called DR Byen (the DR city), covers an area of approximately 133,000 m² (1,431,600 sq ft). The complex, which was formally opened with a gala concert on 17 January 2009, contains a new concert building with room for more than 2,200 people, including 1,800 in the largest concert hall. The concert hall also includes a large new organ by J. L. van den Heuvel Orgelbouw, which has already been completed in their workshops in Dordrecht, Netherlands.

The project has become much more expensive than planned, forcing DR to make drastic budget cuts. In April 2007 it was announced that 300 employees would be laid off, meaning that most of the sports department would be closed down as well as most of the educational department, several programmes and the radio channel DR X. DR would also give up its rights to the Olympic Games and attempt to sell the rights to a number of other sports events including football.

As the major recipient of license funds, DR operates under a public service contract with the government which it was unable to fulfil in the wake of the budget crisis related to the move. The budget overspends caused a major scandal which saw senior management of DR replaced, and was followed by a heated political debate over whether the service should receive additional emergency funding. Various measures to mitigate the impact on the public service obligations of the institution were contemplated by Parliament, and a compromise was agreed to limit the impact of the deficit.

Licence

DR is funded primarily by means of its broadcast receiver licence, collected biannually by DR Licens. Two different licences are available, the radio licence (radio only) and the media licence (all media, including radio), both collected on a per-household basis, regardless of actual use of the services. Traditionally, radio and television owners were obliged to pay the licence, though the increased availability of online streaming has led to the television licence being replaced by the media licence on 1 January 2007. The media licence is mandatory for all owners of television sets, computers with broadband Internet access or TV tuners, as well as mobile phones etc. capable of receiving video signals; the broadband criterion is set as at least 256 kbit/s.

In 2009 the licence has been set to 2,220 DKK (approximately GB£257) for a year per household. In 2007 4.7 billion DKK (GB£544,888,793.64) was paid in licence. Statistics show that approximately 180,000 households do not pay media licence even when obligated to, and 10,000 households are paying radio licence rather than media licence. A person not paying licence is called a "sortseer" or licence dodger in English in DR's campaigns.

Danish TV broadcasting hours (DR1)