When and why did 2fm become RTE 2fm?

rossa morbeg

I remember 2fm once had its own logo and they would never mention RTE on air, but for some reason they dropped having a logo and some jingles started calling the station RTE 2fm, No wonder the youth switched off, At least very few presenters call it RTE 2FM doing a link.

baalthor

When they started in 1979 they were called RTE Radio 2 "Making the music for you!"

I think in the early 90s they switched name to 2FM, it was the trend at the time.

I guess they switched back to emphasise the RTE brand name just like RTE2 TV was known as Network 2 for a few years and is back to RTE2 now.

Skid

RTE rebranded everything with the RTE prefix around 2003

2FM became RTE 2FM
Aertel became RTE Aertel (if you look on page 100)
Lyric FM became RTE Lyric FM
Network 2 became RTE2 (again)

and so on.

It's all about the branding.

icdg

Indeed. RTÉ decided in September 2003 to emphasise the RTÉ brand. Prior to that, since 1988 or so, RTÉ's branding policy around both 2FM and Network 2 was to distance them from RTÉ as much as possible. Remember the "N2 Productions" on Network 2 in the late 1990s.

From September 2003, everything got the "RTÉ" prefix in its name. DOGs (on screen logos) were brought in on both RTÉ One and N2 and N2's read "RTÉ N2". From then it was only a matter of time until RTÉ N2 became simply RTÉ Two. In fairness, they were only doing what the BBC had been doing for years (and particularly since 1991 or so) - emphasising that they were not an independent entity but part of a family.

Same goes for 2FM - you might have noticed 2FM News and 2FM Sport became RTÉ News on 2FM and RTÉ Sport on 2FM at the same time.