La 2 Cat

El canalet

In May 1988, Lluís Prenafeta [es], Secretary-General of the Presidency of the Generalitat de Catalunya, announced with the electoral promise of CiU the creation of the second channel of Televisió de Catalunya, Canal 33 (initially named TV4).^[4] On the other hand, in June that same year, Jaume Sobrequés [es], in charge of the media relations of PSC, demanded Televisión Española (TVE) the creation of a channel entirely in Catalan, since the sports broadcasts on TVE2 made most of its Catalan-language regional variation programming (including L'informatiu [ca]) off the air or simply changed their timeslot,^[5] which would lead to the firing of Rafael Jorba [es], TVE news director at RTVE Catalunya, who was replaced by Enric Lloveras.^[6]

In mid-August 1988, Pilar Miró, Director-General of RTVE, approved the project and fixed the launch date as between that year's National Day of Catalonia in September and October, with initial coverage of 60% of the territory^[7] and a budget of over 2 billion pesetas.^[8] Its airtime was projected to be between 19:00 and midnight^[9] and would air programs that were already on air on the Catalan opt-outs, with L'informatiu (with a fixed slot at 21:00), 135 escons, Debat 2, and Teledues (simulcast with TVE2's opt-out), as well as the premieres of Falcon Crest and Som una maravella by Els Joglars [es].^[8]

The project was expected to start on 17 October,^[10] with the name of TVE2-Catalunya, which was usually nicknamed by locals as El canalet ("The Little Channel"),^[10] but the arrival of Agustí Farré [es], director of TVE Catalunya, to Radio Nacional de España (RNE),^[9] caused the nomination of a successor and the start of Canal 33's test broadcasts on 10 September (which was interfered by TVE)^[11] causing its postponement to 9 January 1989,^[12] and later to April,^[10][12] given that it was necessary to distribute the frequencies between Canal 33 (already authorized), el canalet and the new private networks. With the firing of Miró in 1989, the project ended up in nothing and subsequently it was never launched.

Recovery of the project

Radiotelevisión Española (RTVE)'s administrative council unanimously approved the creation of La 2 Cat on 28 March 2025.^[13] Production is made at the RTVE production center in Sant Cugat del Vallès.^[14] In the days following the announcement of the channel's name, tensions arose between Corporació Catalana de Mitjans Audiovisuals (CCMA) and RTVE for the name, with a race to register names.^[15] For this reason, days after the presentation of the project to the public, the doors were open to find another name for the channel.^[1]

La 2 Cat started broadcasting on 13 October 2025,^[14] and became fully operational by late October of the same year.^[16] It began as a regional variation of La 2, occupying most of the broadcast of the channel in Catalonia, replacing most, but not all, the national programming in Spanish, but with the intention that it will soon have its own frequency and that both channels will be independent.