BFBS Radio 2

BFBS Radio 2 online combines continuous music with news for listeners to the British Forces Broadcasting Service. It is one of the broadcaster's separate listening choices, alongside its main UK programme and channels with more specialised musical briefs. The online Radio 2 service is available through BFBS's website, radio app and smart-speaker listening options.

There is an important difference between this programme and the BFBS Radio 2 FM service available in some overseas locations. Programme rights mean the online version carries a different offering, which BFBS describes specifically as music and news. An overseas FM listing therefore does not describe everything heard here: listeners returning from a posting may encounter a different programme under the same Radio 2 name.

The wider broadcaster began in Algiers in 1943. Connecting armed forces personnel, their families and veterans remains its purpose, particularly when deployment or an overseas posting separates people from home. That relationship has shaped BFBS radio across generations, from the BBC General Forces Programme and Forces Favourites carried in 1945 to Calling the Balkans, which linked personnel in the region with families in Germany during the 1990s.

Radio 2 belongs to that forces-broadcasting tradition while offering its own music-and-news programme online. BFBS's wider radio work received a Sony Special Gold Award in 2010 for its service to the armed forces. Its network also includes broadcasts associated with UK bases and overseas communities, giving Radio 2 a place within a much larger operation rather than making it a station for one particular garrison.