Denmark

October 2020

Key Takeaways

Netflix entered a Danish market dominated by public-service broadcasters that already had developed their own VOD services
Danish streaming viewers prefer YouTube, Netflix and DRTV in that order but DRTV is gaining ground compared to Netflix, which is still the most popular SVOD service in Denmark
The competition from Netflix has influenced the Danish market by moving its Danish competitors to accelerate their digitalization processes and these Danish services have in many ways imitated Netflix’s interface design and functions

Market

Netflix launched in Denmark in October 2012, at the same time as in other Nordic Countries. At the time, Netflix entered a country with only 5.5 million inhabitants and a small market that was dominated by the public-service broadcasters DR and TV 2. The DR Media Development Report from 2012 shows that DR and TV 2 respectively had shares of 29.3 percent and 36.6 percent of the Danish TV viewership. The rest (approx. a third of the market share) was shared between the commercial channel networks TV3/Viasat (8.8 percent), SBS/Discovery (7.7 percent) and other channels (17.6 percent).

The two leading broadcasters in the Danish market are DR and TV 2 Denmark. DR (Danmarks Radio) is a public-service institution funded by the government and responsible for delivering public-service media content to all Danes without the presence of advertising. TV 2 Denmark is a commercial public-service broadcaster owned by the government and funded by a combination of subscriptions and advertising. Both of these broadcasters started developing their VOD services in the early 2000s. In 2007, DR launched an internet-distributed news channel called DR Update, and in 2010 they started their VOD service DR Nu. In 2014, they changed the name of the service to DRTV, which since has given all Danes free access to watch live television and on-demand programming from the different DR television channels. The other market leader, TV 2 Denmark, was also quick to integrate online initiatives as they launched their first SVOD service TV 2 Sputnik back in 2004. In 2012, they changed the name of the service to TV 2 Play, which it is still called today.

The most notable commercial SVOD services have been Viaplay (TV), launched in 2011, Dplay (TV), launched later in 2015, YouSee TV & Film (telco), launched as YouSee Play in 2014, and HBO Nordic (TV), which launched in December 2012 only a few months after Netflix. These competing SVOD services offer a wide variety of content within major film and TV genres like drama, crime, comedy (mostly Viaplay, YouSee and HBO) and reality TV (mostly Viaplay and Dplay) including exclusive/original Danish-language content.

This timeline shows that Netflix was somewhat early to enter the Danish market. However, as research about the Nordic public-service broadcasters has demonstrated these institutions had political leeway to implement and fine-tune online initiatives since the early 2000s, which was why their VOD services were launched at such an early time. The severe competition from Netflix’s portfolio of movies and TV series undoubtedly moved its Danish competitors to accelerate their digitalization processes and production of original content and rebrand their own services. Additionally, DR launched a new youth TV channel called DR3 in January 2013 – only three months after Netflix’s debut in Denmark.

Regulation

The Danish media system has historically been characterized by a significant degree of state intervention in order to make sure that foreign commercial companies (especially Anglophone or German) did not dominate this small market. These regulatory efforts are partly responsible for the strong presence of public-service broadcasters that we still see in Denmark today. Despite the historic tendency towards state intervention when it comes to media policy, Netflix has so far been able to act freely within the broader regulatory structures in the Danish market without breaking any laws. Some of the most important national regulations ensure the freedom of speech and freedom of information but also restrict the degree of advertising, product placement, misrepresentation and deceit towards consumers – specifically aimed at controlling the actions of Danish television and radio networks. At the time of writing, many of these laws have not yet been adapted to foreign streaming services. Because of the mere scale of a company like Netflix, it is likely that Denmark in time will follow the EU’s efforts to legislate and govern the market for large, transnational streaming services and implement the EU’s AVMS directive to its full extent.

In the latest media policy agreement from 2018 from the Danish government, the involved parties have already stated that streaming services made for the Danish market (including foreign services) should be obliged to reinvest 2 percent of their revenue in the production of Danish content. However, this part of the agreement has not yet been written into the national media regulations and the actual implementation of it (as well as the precise percentage) will probably be up for discussion during the upcoming political negotiations led by the current social democratic government.

Viewing Habits

In 2012, the average Danish viewer watched 3 hours and 15 minutes of television per day. While the availability of VOD and SVOD services was rising at that time, only 21 percent of Danes had used them and 17 percent had paid for a subscription. Among these users, the majority used their computer to access the content (also live streaming). However, 84 percent of the users expressed in a DR survey that they ideally wanted to watch the content on their TV screen but only 10 percent of them had actually done it in the last seven days. In comparison, YouTube was already the third most visited webpage in Denmark in 2012, only surpassed by Facebook.com and Google.dk.

In 2019, the average viewer only watched 2 hours and 17 minutes of television per day. Now in 2020, 80 percent have used a streaming service and 60 percent streamed at least once within the last week. YouTube, Netflix and DRTV are the three most popular services in that order. Though since 2018, Netflix’s share of the Danish users has dropped by one percentage point to 39 percent while DRTV has increased their share by six percentage points to 37 percent. If this development continues, DRTV should surpass Netflix by the end of 2020. However, many Danes use both services and have more than one subscription, which means that they do not necessarily cancel one service when they start subscribing to another. Age as a demographic variable is by no means the only explanation for differences in viewing habits since many older viewers have increasingly become cord-cutters. For instance, differences in social class (education and income) and life phases can explain some of the larger variations in current viewing habits.

Linguistically, the Danes have been quite used to watching foreign content with subtitles and especially American and British television shows have been a staple ingredient of Danish television channels – particularly since the late 1980’s and early 1990’s when several new Danish (commercially run) channels launched. This circumstance makes Danes more adapted to watching foreign content with subtitles and especially Anglophone content, which makes up the majority of Netflix’s catalogue.

Internet Pricing and Availability

The widespread use and availability of broadband internet in Denmark contributed to putting the country on the forefront of digitalization/internet-distribution and has made the Danish market alluring for foreign SVOD services like Netflix and HBO Nordic. In 2014, 92 percent of Danish households had a connection speed of at least 30 Mbit/s (download) and 40 percent had at least 1000 Mbit/s. By 2018, the latter percentage had increased to 73 percent and these infrastructures enabled the Danish households’ bandwidth to cope with the high-speed strains from video streaming services. As a small country with a relatively high standard of living and decent infrastructures, a high-speed internet connection is affordable for most Danes just as the widespread broadband use illustrates.

Compared to many other countries, Danes pay a relatively high price for Netflix’s content since a basic Netflix subscription costs 79 DKK per month (equal to 12,72 USD or 10,61 EUR). This price has been quite constant since their launch in 2012. Subsequently, a study shows that the basic, standard and premium subscribers in Denmark pay the second highest price per title in Netflix’s catalogue compared to all other countries and that Denmark is the second most expensive place in the world to buy Netflix (Switzerland is the most expensive).

Content

When Netflix launched in Denmark, a review from that time stated that the service’s content was primarily of American origin and that it had very little Danish content due to limited rights for Danish/Nordic movies and series. In early 2013, it was their new (and revived) series like House of Cards, Arrested Development, Orange is the New Black, Hemlock Grove and Lilyhammer that functioned as their catalogue’s flagship productions for attracting Danish viewers.

Netflix has been slowly increasing its investment in Danish-language content. In 2015, the third season of the Danish TV 2 dramedy series Rita became Netflix’s first ever Danish-language production and allowed the series to continue instead of getting cancelled. The most notable Danish-language production by Netflix has so far been the post-apocalyptic series The Rain (made by the production company Miso Film), which premiered in 2018 and is now in its third season.

Consumer and Press Reaction

Danish news media reported many different reactions to Netflix’s launch. In a review of House of Cards from February 2013, a reviewer claimed that their release of the whole season at once was a revolution of television that other services should learn from because it made binge-watching possible for viewers and gave them “ultimate TV freedom”. In the article, the head of DR Drama, Piv Bernth, rejected the idea that DR should do the same with their fiction series. In DR’s Media Development Report for 2012, they write that the new streaming services Netflix and HBO Nordic are “in many ways similar to Spotify” – a service that more Danes knew and used at that time.

Only six months after Netflix’s launch, a news article states that Netflix is leading with the highest number of subscribers of all the SVOD services and has “won the first battle” for the streaming market. This early tendency also demonstrated that the Danish viewers’ quickly became attracted to Netflix, which has been their favourite SVOD until now.

Subscriber Estimates

Approximately 39 percent of Danes (from age 12 and up) used Netflix at least once a week in 2019.

Local Netflix Office

There is no local Netflix office in Denmark. Instead, the company manages the Danish branch and their Netflix Nordic businesses through their office in Amsterdam.