It is the company's second television channel, and is known for broadcasting cultural, factual and children's programming without interruptions, including documentaries, concerts, theatre and independent, European and classic cinema.
[3] As the 1970s progressed, the channel slowly started to add (predominantly European) shows on the schedule that RTP1 did not air.
On 16 October 1978, RTP decided to separate RTP-1 and RTP/2, giving each channel their own teams and news operations.
[7] Under Fernando Lopes, RTP2 gave prominence to programming outside of traditional concepts seen on RTP1, with topics ranging from analysis of societal issues to science and culture.
[8] That year alone, RTP2 broadcast a total of 1,065 hours[9] In February 1980, it was announced that RTP was going to abolish the autonomous two-channel system, with RTP2 falling under RTP1's control again.
[13] RTP2 started broadcasting from the Porto facilities on 27 June 1981, initially on weekends, before expanding to other days of the week.
The channel increased its broadcasting hours in October 1986, which included an in-depth news service at 9pm, Jornal das 9.
[17] With the impending legalization of commercial television in Portugal, RTP2 was the center of discussions regarding the potential scenario where the Portuguese Catholic Church would either license part of the channel's schedule in a "prime slot".
The decision to rename the channel as TV2 and reface it completely were in response to the launch of SIC on 6 October, with a controversial campaign featuring a woman pregnant of a television set.
As a result, the channel was now forced to focus on children's programming, cultural interests and the civil society.
On 13 October 1986, RTP2 were again getting another new logo that gets changed into a rounded rectangle which has the RTP wordmark appearing to the left of the side of the 2-numeral.
The logo was designed by Monika Cabral, a Brazilian working for the Portuguese arm of Young & Rubicam, and was the result of a competition at with sixty entries, which were shortlisted to the three best.
On 29 April 1996, to coincide with the implementing of RTP's new corporate logo, RTP TV2 decided to revive its original name, and so, it were reverting its name back to its original brand as RTP2, thus getting a new logo which consists of a white "2"-numeral that is inside a light-orange-colored background along with the "RTP" wordmark which is underneath in white color, although it is overlaid in a dark blue background, as RTP2's new-looking idents are consisting of mainly on the logo that is flashed on several themes such as typewriters, stripes (a reference to the previous identity), and some dancing people, although these idents are getting accompanied by RTP2's orchestral tune with some prominent arrangements of a harp, violin and cello, but these idents along with the channel's overall imagery are continuing to be, by far, one of the most original and creative ever made on Portuguese television,[citation needed] so later, on 12 October 1998, RTP2 redesigned its 1996 identity with a new look that is designed by Thomas Sabel at Novocom, and it will especially give an predominance to the actual people by adding the green color into its color scheme, and besides, from 2000, they were later changed into simply-looking graphics that are designed by BBC Broadcast, but these graphics were only used for promos and the 1998 idents continued to be used.
On 19 March 2007, 2: retired its "2:" brand, and by that, it were reverting its channel name back to the original name as RTP2, thus reviving the "RTP2" brand, but at the same time for resurrecting the RTP2's original name, it implemented a new logo by adopting some new idents that continues to become computer-generated CGIs with a lot of vertical stripes in their various forms as the main theme.