After 19 years on the air, Boys Night Out on Magic 89.9 ended quietly — no farewell, no montage, no goodbyes. Just gone. They took away their last celebration.
To me, it felt like a sign of what’s been happening to traditional broadcast radio since 2020: industrial damage, slow decline, and political intervention. Podcasts and Spotify ate its lunch, but censorship nailed the coffin shut.
The final straw? Management, particularly Sarge, forbade discussion of the news, including the arrest of former President Rodrigo Duterte by the International Criminal Court.
Tin Gamboa confirmed it on Threads, screenshots, and all. From there, it spread to Reddit and beyond. But before her receipts, I had already published something that broke wide open — a blog post that became my most-read entry in twelve years.
Stumped in August
That month, I didn’t even know what to write. I was poking at side stories on television: why PMPC is catching up on Star Awards for TV, or why Malou Choa Fagar became PTV’s general manager. Interesting, but nothing urgent.
Then came a tip on my Tally form. It's not a Google Form. Inna Kim (not his real name) posted through that form about the Boys Night Out episode on July 21.
I skimmed, unimpressed. I wasn’t even a radio person.
But hours later, another entry popped up. This time from a junior jock — “Loren.” I think Inna convinced her to vent on the same form.
It was messy: no capitalization, no punctuation, mostly run-ons that sticklers would be incensed. I presumed she's a Zillennial (rushed), but nevertheless, I read it.
The “No Zoom” Storm
But the higher-ups had the marching order: Everyone had to come to the booth, no matter what.
We're not longer in the pandemic, but looking further at the circumstances of July 21, it meant braving floods during one of Metro Manila’s stormiest weeks. Classes were canceled, and offices went remote.
In my case, I was in Pampanga. I was living in Good Shepherd Memorial Park during the wake of my father, who died two days prior, after a month-long battle of liver and pancreatic cancer.
Alone in the Blogosphere
Most of my peers had already drifted away. One stuck to X threads. The other, who is more enthusiastic about Philippine radio than I, hadn’t posted for months. Another chased the news. Others defended their favorite networks.
It felt like I was the last one still blogging the old way.
So I asked myself: Should I post this? Or let it pass as just another rant?
In the end, I couldn’t shake it off. I decided to combine Inna and Loren's submissions into one.
The Blog Post That Blew Up
I considered running Loren’s story. I don't want to sugarcoat it. I'm not the person to gaslight, and I am medyo frank. It's her rawness that stirred me.
Though I cheat a bit with ChatGPT with specific parameters to prompt. I shaped it lightly, added context, and scheduled it for the next morning.
At first, just a trickle of readers until Tin noticed it, and she commended it. On my WordPress dashboard, it numbers blew up.
In early September, the blog post was recognized on BNO. Some personnel finally bowed out
Then Tin Gamboa’s Threads post dropped, confirming everything. And the story went nuclear.
In twelve years of existence in WordPress, no blog entry of mine had ever seen that kind of reach.
Hero or Villain?
But the more the story spread, the more uneasy I felt.
Had I sped up the downfall of BNO? Should I have just stayed quiet and let the show fade gently?
Was I a hero for exposing the truth — or a villain for twisting the knife?
I still don’t know. Even today.
The Bigger Picture
What I do know is this: the problem wasn’t just one blog or one host. It was the industry itself.
Radio once shaped culture in the urban jungle — the sound of mornings, commutes, and nights. Boys Night Out was part of that legacy. But the pandemic broke listening habits. Spotify replaced playlists as streaming replaced digital TV.
And when radio tried to adapt, it hid from reality. It silenced topics that mattered. And in doing so, it silenced itself.
Epilogue
Now I look back and realize: I didn’t topple anything. I just wrote down what someone inside had already whispered.
For years, I wondered if anyone was still listening to blogs. And then, out of nowhere, one post reminded me: words still matter.
Hero, villain, or just witness — I don’t know. But I wrote it. And they noticed.
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