It is funded by a mixture of advertising breaks and a television licence fee; as such, unlike its German equivalents (which are generally available free-to-air), ORF 2 and its sister stations are encrypted over satellite.

ORF 2 began broadcasting three days a week as a "Technical Test Program" (Technisches Versuchsprogramm) on UHF frequencies on 11 September 1961.

On 9 January 2012, a complete design change took place, similar to that of ORF eins a year prior.

In line with the clear design of ORF eins, a vertical navigation bar was introduced as a central on-air element to join programme credits, idents, promotions and commercial breaks.

In 2005, there was another update to ORF's on-screen design: to avoid the logo being burnt in to plasma screens, it was changed from red-yellow to grey all-over.