In the early years, much programming and music was common to both stations, particularly on the shared FM frequency. Radio 2 gradually settled down as a station playing a mixture of laid-back pop/rock, folk and country, jazz and big-band music, , light classics, and 'oldies', with significant amounts of and ; this policy continued until April 1986 when , then its head of music, repositioned the station (she would become controller in 1990). An increasingly ageing audience was sticking with that station; Line repositioned Radio 2 to appeal exclusively to older listeners and introduced a lineup of older presenters and "light music" pitched squarely at a 50+ audience.
Although popular with its target audience, this policy alienated younger listeners who had previously time-shared between Radio 1 and Radio 2; the station's audience fell drastically, taking another hit when sport coverage was moved to ; the rise of album-rock commercial stations (particularly ), also impacted Radio 2's audience, taking younger listeners away. Radio 2 was neglecting the fact that by the mid-nineties a substantial audience in their forties, fifties and early sixties had grown up with rock and modern pop, and were still listening to contemporary music; they and the generation that had been abandoned by Radio 1 had largely deserted the BBC for commercial stations.
Line was replaced by in 1996.
Moir repositioned Radio 2 as a station with an AOR/contemporary playlist by day and more specialist broadcasting in the evenings, moving many presenters across from the increasingly youth-oriented Radio 1. The schedule (particularly on Friday evenings and Sundays) still bears some hallmarks of the "easy listening" era, but Radio 2 is now firmly established as "the nation's favourite", a title the BBC has started using to describe it rather than Radio 1.
Today Radio 2 is the most listened to radio station in the UK, with its schedule filled with well-known and respected broadcasters like , , , , , , , and .
The station now has a demographic of adult listeners, generally from 30 and up, and its daytime tends to feature music from the 1980s and 1990s as well as contemporary chart, album and . The station's appeal is both broad and deep, with a mixture of accessible daytime programming and specialist programming for enthusiasts of particular types or eras of music
Weekday evenings tend to feature specialist music programmes -- a range of genres are covered including , , , , , classic rock, and also biographies and documentaries on various musical artists and genres. This specialist programming typically runs between 7 pm and 10.
30 pm.
's "Sounds of the Sixties" remains a popular fixture on the Saturday schedule, with 's shorter "Sounds of the Seventies" running midweek.
On Sundays the schedule reverts for much of the day to something decidedly closer to its old style, with presenters like Richard Baker and David Jacobs and long-standing programmes like " " and " ".
Whilst being adult-oriented, Radio 2 does not broadcast complete works of , the domain of , or offer in-depth discussion or drama, the job of ( 's weekday afternoon show does cover current and consumer affairs in a relatively informal way, in a style pioneered by his predecessor, Jimmy Young). Until the advent of , Radio 2's medium wave frequencies were the BBC's main radio outlet for sports coverage (before becoming Five Live, Radio 5 was originally created by splitting off Radio 2's frequencies, leaving Radio 2 on FM only).
Like all BBC radio stations broadcasting to UK audiences, Radio 2 is funded by the fee, and does not broadcast .
BBC Radio 2's last closedown was at 02:02 GMT on . Sarah Kennedy (who, following the fading of her 1980s television career, has been a daily early morning presenter on Radio 2 since 1993) was at the Newsdesk after Brian Matthew finished the "Round Midnight" programme. From 02:00-05:00 GMT the following night onwards, late-night listeners could listen to "You and the Night and the Music".
(Although, throughout the 1980s and early 90s, a programme called "Nightride" also broadcast at this time). Radio 2 has therefore had the longest period of continuous broadcasting of any national radio station in the UK - more than twenty-five years to date.
On this station, the are broadcast at 07:00 and at 08:00 on weekdays between gaps in Terry Wogan's self-styled banter, then again at 1700 at the end of Steve Wright's afternoon show.
When Jonathan Ross sat in for Wogan in 2004, he failed to cut his own banter and consequently spoke over the pips.
BBC Radio 2 moved its studios from to the adjacent Western House in 2005 , although many shows are broadcast from Birmingham (e.g.
Janice Long) or Manchester (Mark Radcliffe).
Radio 2 has recruited Jeff Smith, currently director of UK and International programming at Napster and a former head of music at Radio 1, as its new head of music.
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