RTÉ ONE, 2, Junior, and Player

What changes did they make? Seems like RTÉ NEWS NOW as it was before.

(I could complain when you say RTÉ only in caps but N is also capitalized, but I really hate RTÉ News and RTÉ Sport are not fully capitalized and RTÉ ONE is).

Its

Its not unusual for a parent company to use its name or branding on an associate channel BBC, ITV, sport, ITVBe, Sky News, Movies, History, Documentary.

Trailers for a show on RTÉ Player end with the words "DIVE IN" on the screen, bigger than the name of the show or the RTÉ Player logo. It would make you think the programme being advertised is called Dive In. Little things like that make the difference.

Do RTÉ even have a branding guideline for their staff and independent programme makers to follow? I'd love to see it if they do!

RTÉ 2 having such an awful on screen identity is another bugbear. When it comes to branding and graphics on RTÉ, there seems to be a general attitude of "aye, that'll do" rather than providing something that really stands out and has an impact.

I was surprised to see recently that Diagnosis Murder has made a return to the RTE ONE daytime schedule after an absence of a quarter of a century, not that I think it's a bad thing, just surprising because showing such American reruns has been very much a TG4 thing the past 15+ years.

It's crazy that the "Director of video" hasn't done a thing to update the television stations.

Just on News 2, here is a news and weather buliten on N2 as it was then. It shows the separate news graphics, a N2 production end caption, a N2 weather ident (Nuala Carey as one of the first non-meteorologist presenting the weather, they could only present the weather on RTÉ2 at the time), with eircom sponsorship.

while here is the last news programme on RTÉ2 in 2014, with an RTÉ end caption.

But at lest those end captions don't constantly have Your Public Service Media through across them.

Why though for what reason, purely to bring it in under the brand of RTÉ? Because I'd argue that once that change was made and RTÉ TWO and RTÉ2 began to really become much more of the "second channel", that final News programme, clearly distinct from RTÉ News (bar the RTÉ2 logo).

There is nothing clearly identifiably Irish or local on RTÉ2 now, save for sport and a smattering of children's content. It could easily be mistaken as VMTV FIVE.

And lets remember no one refers to 2fm, Lyric or RnaG along with the parent brand.

Not even RTÉ

https://about.rte.ie/2026/05/22/beta-da-silva-hosts-live-performances-from-20-new-irish-artists-in-sessions-from-oblivion-on-2fms-new-music-show/

Not once in that press release is RTÉ mentioned.

Officially the station names are RTÉ 2FM, RTÉ Lyric FM and RTÉ RnaG, much like officially its "the RTÉ News channel".

RTÉ TWO was filled with much of what had already been developed for N2 / RTÉ N2, it was largely just a lick of paint (which as we have mentioned is need once and a while … 12 years on).

Rot began with RTÉ TWO, Raw the last of the drama's commissioned for the channel moved over to RTÉ ONE in its second season, pretty much ending "Monday Night Comedy / Monday Night Original programming" on the channel. Then the channel was besieged by pilot series such as the ongoing "Storyland*" and "The Format Farm".

RTÉ NEWS on TWO was eventually dropped for no real reason, it as you say had pretty much become a repeat of the main RTÉ NEWS from ONE by that point.

That dive into the current era started with its rebrand as RTÉ TWO.

As for catering for children on 2… They cut funding to children's programming in 2016, moving it to the indo sector, suggesting that they were not cutting and that they were committed to Children's and Young People's content, but they have yet to reverse those cuts and what little they do today for that audience is still way below the levels of 2015. (Just look at both the annual reports for RTÉ and their Commission Unit they spend a pittance on children/young people and dress it up as thriftiness).

*Correction indeed Storyland lead to the last scripted comedy/drama on the channel, The Hardy Bucks, but its lead to very little else. And many at the time complained that really it was developed on YouTube long before storyland.

That just doesn't seem possible in RTÉ.

Many of those Juggernauts came from network TV in the US. None of those really exist any more. All replaced by detective franchises. I'd argue that Grey Anatomy and Desperate housewives are part of the demise of Network TV in the US. Both harking back to the Prime Time Soap (followed by remakes of many of the 80s soaps Dallas, Falcon Crest and Dynasty all returned in some shape or form).

Though I do see FOX picking up a Doc Martin US remake. But its one of 2 drama's on the channel. Most likely to been seen on Disney+ here.

Even Netflix and Sky dramas aren't hitting the kind of levels that your talking about, many are niche or they have so many that everyone is watching something else.

TV3 were never very good with US programming. Sex and The City was offered to RTÉ but they decided against due to the high number of made for TV movies that were part of the package, if you remember TV3's Wednesday night TV movie of the week at the time. Malcolm in the Middle was massive for TV3, looking back on old ratings for them.

But it doesn't explain the reduction in Home Produced or Local programming on RTÉ2. Many of those show were supplemented by Irish programming, its not like those Irish shows moved to the streamers.

This is correct, I think they were part of the Canwest Fireworks distribution package.

The RTE news app has got a refresh rolled out in an update on the app store , new layout though im not so sure its a better layout?

Even 20 years ago when RTE Two had the big American shows and home produced youth shows like The Cafe and podge and Rodge, I feel it's identity crisis was already there because often at 8pm it would be showing random BBC nature documentaries, or reruns of Hands and Mike Murphy's Australia.