Radio Mindanao Network, Inc. (RMN)

The Radio Mindanao Network, Inc., popularly known as RMN, is one of the country’s oldest existing broadcasting companies incorporated in April 1961 under the leadership of its founder Henry R. Canoy, who died at 84 years old in 2008. It was founded two months before it obtained a 25-year franchise from Congress to construct, operate and maintain television and radio stations in the Philippines.

As of January 2024, RMN has grown its network to a total of 59 stations by putting up new stations all around the country and by affiliating and providing services to smaller radio networks. It now owns 20 stations each in the AM and FM bandwidths, as well as 19 affiliate stations including DWWW 774.

In 1998, RMN also expanded overseas when it became the first Philippine radio station to enter the United States through the launch of WRMN in New York in 1998.

RMN also tried to venture into television when it launched in August 1991 the “TV-8” in Cagayan de Oro. There’s, however, no information if TV-8 is still operating, although RMN is still assigned as holder of the station’s frequency.

Although it was only incorporated in 1961, RMN traced its roots to the experimentation in 1948 of Canoy with his friends Robin Cui and Vicente Rivera to set up two home-built tube radio receivers in his hometown Cagayan de Oro. A year later in 1949, Canoy made his first broadcast over a pirate radio station using the 30-watt radio transmitter that they built using surplus products, risking arrest for operating a station without a permit.

In 1952, Canoy launched his first legal radio station called DXCC using the broadcast franchise obtained by his brother Reuben, a lawyer-turned-mayor of Cagayan De Oro, who convinced him to enter the broadcast industry. It is claimed that Canoy’s team used a coconut tree and a telescopic steel pole (borrowed from then-Bureau of Telecommunications) as antenna for DXCC’s transmitter.

DXCC, which is the first radio station in Cagayan de Oro, even reached as far as Australia through ham or amateur radio operations. Canoy focused DXCC’s programs on entertainment, information and education after getting inspired by a local radio station in Colorado, U.S.

Within five years, Canoy started expanding in 1957 their radio network in nearby provinces in Mindanao such as Butuan, Iligan and Davao, and as far as the Philippine capital, Manila.

RMN has been able to survive in the competitive radio broadcast industry by using newer technologies to improve and broaden its reach such as in 2007 when its FM station DWKC 93.9 (iFM Manila) became the first commercial station in the country to use high definition (HD) radio technology that allowed it to broadcast in three HD radio digital audio channels aside from its pre-existing analog signal.

In 1968, RMN became the first in the country to use microwave technology to deliver “fast, direct and crystal clear” nationwide newscasts. The technology bolstered the delivery of news by Tri-Media News Central, the country’s first tri-media conglomerate composed of RMN, the newspaper Philippines Herald (now defunct) and the broadcast company Inter-Island Broadcasting Corporation (now the government-owned Intercontinental Broadcasting Corporation or IBC-13) formed in 1962.

The Tri-Media News Central, which was headed by Canoy, was formed after the group of the late businessman Andres Soriano Sr., known as former owner of alcohol manufacturer San Miguel Corporation, acquired majority shares in RMN and bought IBC-13 and the Philippines Herald. Soriano, who acquired American citizenship in 1944 upon serving for the U.S. army that fought for the Philippine liberation during World War II, died in 1964.

However, the Soriano conglomerate was broken after the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr., the father of the incumbent Philippine president, declared martial law in September 1972 that shutdown all media outlets. IBC and RMN, along with a few media outlets, were able to reopen a few days after the declaration.

In 1975, the Sorianos, who were American citizens, were forced to sell IBC-13 to Roberto Benedicto, a crony of Marcos, due to citizenship issues after the government enforced the prohibition under the 1973 Constitution on foreign ownership in media. Meanwhile, the Canoy family bought back the shares acquired by the Soriano group in RMN.

In 2016, a group led by Henry’s son Eric, who serves as chairman and president of RMN, were among those who expressed interest to purchase IBC-13 from the government. There have been no recent updates if the government is pushing through with IBC’s privatization.

As of May 2023, the wife, children and grandchildren of Canoy wholly own and manage RMN. This, despite a requirement under the company’s broadcast franchise renewal in 2016 under Republic Act No. 10818 that states at least 30% of the company’s shares must be offered to the public.