RT has survived the ravages of time, the reformats that took place in different FM stations and the 2 rebrandings it underwent before going back to what has been tried and tested successfully for the past three decades. After it was buried in the graveyard of past beloved stations for almost 2 years, its owners finally decided to bring back the old 99.5RT that every one knew and loved.
Back in 2007, RT was rebranded into 99.5 Hit FM, which according to some was essentially similar to RT but geared towards a younger and seemingly profitable listening demo. Eventually, the venture failed after being on the air for one year, signing off on March 2008.
That same month, it was replaced by another youth-oriented brand, a sort of "imported" format brought by the guys of the former Campus Radio 97.1. The station became Campus 99.5 which was, as some would say, a replica of the station many grew up listening when it was still on WLS-FM. Unfortunately, the Campus experiment didn't work either on the side of the owners thus the decision to discontinue it in the middle of August 2008.
After 2 weeks of transition, on 9/1/08 Real Radio Network brought back 99.5 RT.
Before, I never was a listener to RT or any other stations while growing up save for a few. I do however knew of its existence through occasional mentioning from time to time, as well as one of its programs back in the day, Sunday Sessions. My faintest memory of ever having listened to it as a kid was the way they say the station's name and that's all I knew before.
Curious, I decided to get my ears adjust to the returning station, at first struggling to get my ears hooked on a station playing not-so-mainstream music. Their choice of songs is clearly different compared to its predescessors (Hit plays mainstream pop while Campus leans toward alternative music), playing songs often heard in clubs or tracks that seem to be "high-end".
On its very first day back on air, it just so happened that there's not much for me to do in school so I tok the opportunity to go the station myself, having to take a train ride to Boni so I could visit a radio station for the very first time. In total, I made 4 visits and I personally met while there several RT jocks: Robi, MigZ, Lellie, Da Kid, Sam Oh, and Slyde (three days before, I met Ramon Bautista). I saw Angel Rivero in the station but I never got the chance to meet her.
Sooner than I could realize, RT became a regular staple of my radio listening habit. It kinda helped me fill the void left by Campus as I got the hang on RT.
That rhythmic love affair didn't stop from there. In one bizarre and hugely unexplainable turn of events, I had an RT disc jockey for a professor, Joshua Z! He was actually a replacement personally chosen by earlier professor for Sondesn, Sir Henry Bolo who was leaving for Singapore.
A week before Sir Henry made the announcement, someone eerily familiar walked inside the sound lab. Sir mentioned his name and somehow I could recall that name from somewhere until I realize that it was after-all THE Joshua Z! Cutting the long story short, Sir Zahn (his real name) and I became good friends and still would often see each other at school.
As the months passed, I began to love RT more and more. My favorite would have to be their oldies program, 24k Weekend. There's something about it that is uncomparable to any other oldies program around, at least from such that I know off (like Magic 89.9's Friday Madness). You could say that I was converted into an RT addict.
For one whole year, it definetly defied the odds, having been resurrected. The return of the Rhythm came at the time when people would prefer to listen through their i-Pods instead of the usual chatter and music redundancy that has become common staple on FM.
As RT celebrate a year of its return, I bid congratulations to the Rhythm of the City and more power!
