According to the Danish country report in the Media Pluralism Monitor project, Denmark does not have specific laws regulating ownership of media; instead, the media market is regulated by general competition. There have been no legal cases (litigation) regarding media pluralism, nor regarding limitations on media pluralism. Neither has Denmark faced problems with politically affiliated business people taking control of central media outlets and using them for direct or indirect political influence (Willig & Blach-Ørsten, 2016). This is due to the large public service sector and to the tradition of foundation ownership. It is also important to note that Danish laws on public service radio and television demand diverse programming and that all public service media have editorial freedom. Furthermore, there is a media subsidy system (innovation pool and direct subsidies) for editorial content for the written press, online and in print, which is based on a general consideration for media pluralism. The Danish media system has various boards that function independently of the political system and work as defined in law and following their statutory obligations. Finally, pluralism of the media and of content is a general principle of the media laws, especially concerning public service and media subsidies (Willig & Blach-Ørsten, 2016).
Denmark does, however, show evidence of media ownership concertation at the national level. There are two explanations for this: 1) Denmark is a small media market, and 2) the Danish state is a large domestic media owner, owning the two large broadcasting companies as well as eight regional public service broadcasters (funded by licence fees), with one regional television channel each and regional windows on the largest television channel TV 2, if measured by audience. Furthermore (especially relevant to the cross-media ownership concentration) the largest national news agency (Ritzau) is owned by a large group of media companies including the Danish public service broadcaster DR (Willig & Blach-Ørsten, 2016).
Due to the market dominance of the two public service channels, CR3 (the total market share for the three largest suppliers) on the television market is 0.86 (2018). Market concentration in the print media sector is somewhat lower, although still significant (as Danish newspapers have ceased to measure their circulation in 2014, a CR3 comparable to the other countries cannot be calculated).
