DR was founded on 1 April 1925 under the name of
Radioordningen, which was changed to
Statsradiofonien in 1926, then to
Danmarks Radio in 1959, and to
DR in 1996. 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. with the launch of Denmark's first television channel. Daily programming began in 1954. Danmarks Radio officially ended its "test" transmissions of colour television on 1 April 1970, although it wasn't until 1978 that the organisation's last black-and-white television programme (
TV Avisen—The News) went over to colour. At 14.00 local time on 16 May 1983 DR launched its first
teletext information service, which is still available on all DR channels. Danmarks Radio's monopoly on national television lasted until 1988, when
TV2 started broadcasting. 8 years later DR launched their second television channel,
DR2, on 30 August 1996. It was sometimes called
den hemmelige kanal () in its early years because it could not be seen nationwide at its launch. The first trials of
DAB were carried out in 1995, with eight channels officially launching in October 2002. In 2006, as part of its relocation to
DR Byen, DR was rebranded with a new logo designed by Front Nordic. On 7 June 2007, DR launched an online-only news channel
DR Update. It was later added as a traditional channel. With the switch to over-the-air digital signals on 1 November 2009, DR added three new channels to its lineup •
DR K - an intercultural, documentary and "odd-film" channel. •
DR HD – Denmark's first
free-to-air high-definition channel intended to air successful shows from the other DR channels in true HD only, with no upscaling. •
DR Ramasjang, a children's channel. In 2013, a new logo in which the letters "DR" featured in a white
sans-serif font on a black background was introduced, and the line-up of television channels was changed once again. A new channel targeting young people,
DR3 replaced DR HD. Another channel for children,
DR Ultra replaced DR Update. The closure of DR Update was the start of a revamping of
DR 2 as a channel for news and society. A nationwide switch from DAB to the newer DAB+ format took place on 1 October 2017. All of DR's stations plus the privately owned, public service channel - Radio24Syv, moved to the second national DAB+ multiplex (DAB-blok 2).
Relocation of DR and funding crisis During 2006–07, DR moved all of its activities from
Radiohuset in
Frederiksberg and
TV-Byen in
Søborg to a new complex in the
Ørestad area of Copenhagen. The new building, called DR Byen (), covers an area of approximately . The project became 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 the
Danish Parliament, and a compromise was agreed to limit the impact of the deficit. == Logo history ==