Channel 2 (Israel)

The channel started commercial broadcasting on 4 November 1993 regulated and managed by The Second Authority for Television and Radio.

The idea of a second television channel in Israel was first mooted in 1978 when the Israeli government set up a special committee headed by Haim Kovarsky (he) to explore the establishment of a second channel that would not be under supervision of the Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA) and would be financed by advertising, however the idea of commercial television was rejected by the National Religious Party (NRP), which was part of the ruling coalition at that time.

[2] The concessionaires received a broadcasting contract for one decade and worked out a rotation agreement amongst themselves.

[4] In 2005, the Ministry of Communications announced that two concessionaires would receive broadcasting contracts for the following decade.

[5] Of the four competitors – the three existing concessionaries, and a new operator called Kan (unrelated to the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation, which would only be established 12 years afterwards) – Keshet and Reshet were chosen.

In 2011, Channel 2 installed a new digital system to preserve news content that was stored on aging videotapes and manage its archive library.

In the same year's independence day, the experimental channel did a live news broadcast during the entire holiday.

During the strike, Ida Nudel arrived in Israel and the experimental channel was directed to live broadcast her welcoming ceremony.

After seven years of experimental broadcasts, the bid to determine Channel 2's franchisees ended.

The request was turned down because all commercial channels had to go through the Second Authorities' systems and they did not work with HD broadcasts.

Since the law that splits the channel, the franchisees started showing their logos in the bottom left corner of their broadcasts.

The news company kept existing under the ownership of both franchisees until January 2019, when "Reshet" and Channel 10 merged.

Most of the news company's contents were broadcast in parallel on both channels except for the commercial breaks and the weather forecast's sponsorship ads.

Less than one year after the split, "Reshet" and Channel 10's shareholders decided to merge; the merger became effective in January 2019.

The reason for this decision is because of "Makan 33"'s low rating and since it broadcasts only for several hours each day.

All TV and radio channels that were available on the old DVB-T mux will be moved to DVB-Ts as on January 29, 2025.