Sweden has a population of 10.5 million people, distributed across 4.9 million households. There is a typical mix of content services on offer, including Swedish public and commercial TV and radio services, and the streaming-only services from national, regional, and global providers. SVT is the publicly-funded national broadcaster, operating 4 TV channels. TV4 is the primary commercial broadcaster with 15 TV channels. Content is available via Freeview (a free-to-air service delivered over DTT that includes the SVT channel and the main TV4 channel), or via pay-TV services delivered over Satellite, Cable or IPTV platforms that includes SVT, TV4 and many other specialized commercial TV channels. SVT and TV4 also deliver content via their streaming apps, alongside the regular line-up of Netflix, Prime, Disney+, Viaplay, and more.

The use of the various services breaks down approximately as follows across the 4.9 million households:

TV and radio broadcasting services are provided by Sweden’s state-owned Teracom, enabled by the broadcast network of 468 transmitters, of which 54 are high power transmitters. These towers ensure SVT can reach the required 99.8% of Sweden’s households. Only some very rural and mountainous regions in the north of Sweden are not guaranteed to be covered by SVT’s services. In comparison, broadband services using fiber now reach 98.89% of Swedish households, with 71.19% of households subscribing to a fiber-based broadband service. Teracom’s Communications Services business division reported earnings of SEK 1410 million (€126 million, $136 million) for the 2024 fiscal year.

BoxerTV’s DTT Switch-Off

BoxerTV is a multi-channel Pay-TV service in Sweden. It was launched by Teracom in 1999, sold to ComHem in 2016, and then ComHem was merged into Tele2 in 2018. BoxerTV, along with SVT and TV4, have been the sole users of DTT services in Sweden, dividing the associated Teracom network costs between them. BoxerTV’s line-up of channels has typically been managed on a revenue share arrangement, with BoxerTV taking responsibility for the delivery costs.

Then, on January 2^nd 2025 a seminal moment took place that could have large implications for the DTT-IP transition: BoxerTV switched over its delivery of over 50 channels from DTT to streaming-only.

The BoxerTV decision had been marked by a steady decline in subscribers from a peak of approximately 500,000 in 2016 to approximately 170,000 in 2024. The planned switch-off from DTT was originally announced in August 2024, when BoxerTV had approximately 200,000 subscribers.

With BoxerTV switching off its DTT service, it is no longer making a significant contribution to the overall cost of Sweden’s DTT network. This has set the scene for a critical review of broadcast services in Sweden which could have ripple effects across other countries that are in the middle of their “Future of TV” debates.

Technically, BoxerTV’s service is now relying on OTT delivery over any fixed or mobile broadband network the viewer uses. SVT’s services retransmitted by Boxer are now suffering from all the regular challenges of streaming over uncontrolled IP networks such as latency and rebuffering issues and slower channel changes, although SVT (and TV4) remain available via DTT in the Freeview service. The new BoxerTV IP-only service is in its early days, but anecdotal evidence suggests there are customer experience problems. It will be interesting to see if BoxerTV tries to improve this situation, and to see how many customers will remain by the end of 2025. During this period, it will also be interesting to see if the commercial channels on BoxerTV are picked up by the Freeview service that currently only includes SVT and TV4 channels.

Legally, channel licenses for each broadcaster in Sweden are valid for the remainder of 2025 although there is no longer a DTT-based operator to carry these channels via DTT (a license is only required for DTT-delivery, not any other form of delivery). SVT and TV4 contract directly with Teracom for broadcast services, and continue to be delivered in the Freeview DTT service and via all Pay-TV operators’ services. All the other channels in BoxerTV’s line-up are contracted to be delivered by BoxerTV as part of the ongoing video service provided by BoxerTV, although this is now separate to any DTT/License-related agreement. 2025 will probably be a defining moment for the future of linear TV channels in Sweden.

What Next For DTT In Sweden?

SVT and TV4 are now the sole users of the Teracom DTT network and are approaching the renegotiation of 8-year distribution contracts that will start from 2026.

Today, 25% of SVT’s total viewing minutes are through their streaming service, SVT Play. This is a higher percentage than most European broadcasters. SVT therefore feels the challenge of migrating their financial investments from DTT to IP to support further growth, during a period when their DTT costs are fixed due to the population coverage they are obliged to maintain by their charter.

Deciding how to support this sudden impact created by BoxerTV and the steady move of SVT and TV4 viewers towards streaming has a range of points to consider. Like other countries facing this challenge (albeit without the sudden impact like BoxerTV has caused) there are many considerations including ensuring the population receives the publicly funded content and that “no one is left behind” in a Digital-IP switchover, managing the cost of DTT and IP simultaneously in the transition period, and the sustainability impact of these changes.

With input from SVT to this article, it is clear that several challenges need to be overcome in the decision-making process:

• Right-sizing the DTT network: The shut-down of large transmitters and their smaller linked transmitters can switch off coverage in a large area. While only switching off smaller transmitters may not significantly reduce the cost and power consumption of the overall network.
• The role of the Radio network: DTT services are a relatively easy add-on to the broadcast network tower infrastructure that is required for delivering radio services. In Sweden, the FM radio network is an integral part of public emergency services that cannot be easily changed. It is notable that in the USA, lobbying is currently underway to secure the future of AM radio services (not available in Sweden), which are noted by the lobbyists for being the most resilient form of communications during bad weather.
• Internet capacity: Sweden’s broadband networks are not currently built out for full peak usage and the same population coverage as DTT achieves. Capacity needs to be ready for full national delivery in moments of national need (e.g., pandemics, security alerts, national celebrations).

Given that Teracom is a state-owned enterprise, SVT is a fully publicly-funded enterprise, and a large user of the Teracom network is the Swedish emergency services, there is an emerging case for more of the broadcast network costs to be absorbed by the security and emergency services budget, rather than the broadcasting budget. But we are early in the process of review that has been accentuated by the BoxerTV situation, and as 2025 progresses there will be much to observe about what the future of DTT services in Sweden will be and what this will mean for traditional linear TV.

The Broadband Regionalization Plan

In parallel with the DTT situation is Sweden’s activity to consider regionalizing the broadband network, with an in-progress consultation led by the Swedish Regulator PTS (Post och Telestyrelsen). This “network decentralization” concept is based on the idea of having nine (9) autonomous regional Access Network entities in Sweden, each able to operate independently of the others and with roaming arrangements between the networks to cover any outages. Internet Service Providers (ISPs), whether fixed or mobile networks, would contract with as many of the 9 access networks as they choose to provide services to Swedish consumers.

From a broadcaster perspective this creates network resilience that would improve how their CDN (Content Delivery Network) suppliers and/or their own CDN operations could improve performance, based on ISPs having more distributed (and therefore more resilient) points of connectivity to the Access Network operators. From an SVT perspective, this plan has the capability to provide a similar population coverage with associated service reliability as the DTT MUX infrastructure and is therefore being followed closely.

The DTT-OTT Transition

There are multiple forces driving the Media industry in Sweden, and elsewhere, to make the DTT-to-OTT (or “Digital-to-IP”) transition: reducing subscriptions for bundled pay-TV services, the dominance of streaming services, the growth of broadcaster streaming services, the near-universal availability of high-quality broadband services, and the growing total cost to broadcasters of simultaneously delivering over DTT and IP networks paints a fairly obvious picture of the total move of Video Services delivery to all-IP.

The only question is when. Sweden’s BoxerTV situation marks a possible, and probable, acceleration of decision-making for SVT, TV4, and Teracom which will be closely observed by other countries in the middle of their own DTT-OTT transition.

It is notable that the decision-making on the future of DTT-based TV services is tempered by the fact that the FM and AM services utilizing the same broadcast network infrastructure are unlikely to be stopped any time soon until an equally reliable, resilient, and secure solution can be implemented.

“SVT is challenged by sharply rising costs for distribution via terrestrial TV, while the number of viewers using this reception method is steadily declining,” states Per Björkman, Head of Distribution for SVT. “In addition, there are increasing demands to enhance the robustness and security of our online services. It is an impossible equation under the current economic conditions.”

Per adds, “We believe that a new funding model is needed for terrestrial radio and TV in Sweden. It is not reasonable for taxpayer-funded public service to bear the increased costs of ensuring the state's need for secure and universal distribution of TV in the public interest.”

“Traditional linear TV will continue to be a sought-after media service for viewers for many years to come, but we need to review the costs of reaching the audience. This is especially true for terrestrial TV, where a great responsibility lies with Teracom, which is in charge of its operation.”

As the debate unfolds in 2025, Sweden will become a leading example of decision-making and policy-setting for other government regulators, broadcasters, and telcos.