BBC Twois a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream and popular BBC One.
Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio channels, it is funded by the television licence, and is therefore free of commercial advertising. It is a comparatively well-funded public-service channel, regularly attaining a much higher audience share than most public-service channels worldwide.
Originally styled BBC2, it was the third British television station to be launched (starting on 21 April 1964), and from 1 July 1967, Europe's first television channel to broadcast regularly in colour. It was envisaged as a home for less mainstream and more ambitious programming, and while this tendency has continued to date, most special-interest programmes of a kind previously broadcast on BBC Two, for example the BBC Proms, now tend to appear on BBC Four instead.
A major global study by the polling organisation Populus for the BBC found that BBC Two is rated as the third highest quality television channel in the world, behind BBC One and Brazil's TV Cultura. In general, publicly funded television was rated higher than commercial channels.
