A request line is a

telephone line A telephone line or telephone circuit (or just line or circuit industrywide) is a single-user circuit on a telephone communication system. It is designed to reproduce speech of a quality that is understandable. It is the physical wire or oth ...

which allows listeners to call a

radio station Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based rad ...

, traditionally to request the

disc jockey A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include Radio personality, radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at nightclubs or music fes ...

to play a specific piece of recorded music on-air. In the late 20th century, a large volume of listener requests for a specific song could help to turn it into a hit in the United States market. By the early 2000s, radio request line data was supplemented by a changing mix of other sources, such as online surveys, to help predict future hits.

Telephone network

Although only one

telephone number A telephone number is the address of a Telecommunications, telecommunication endpoint, such as a telephone, in a telephone network, such as the public switched telephone network (PSTN). A telephone number typically consists of a Number, sequ ...

is usually announced, major stations typically have

line hunting In telephony, line hunting (or hunt group) is the method of distributing phone calls from a single telephone number to a group of several phone lines. Specifically, it refers to the process or algorithm used to select which line will receive the ca ...

, with the same number being directed to any available one of several lines within the hunt group. If there are no open lines, the

calling party The calling party (in some contexts called the "A-Number") is a person who (or device that) initiates a telephone call. The person who, or device that, receives a telephone call is the called party (or callee or B-party). In some countries, it i ...

may receive a busy signal as with an ordinary

telephone call A telephone call, phone call, voice call, or simply a call, is the effective use of a connection over a telephone network between the calling party and the called party. Telephone calls are the form of human communication that was first enabl ...

, or sometimes the special information tones followed by a recorded announcement that "all circuits are busy, please try your call again later". In this case, the line often first gives that caller a

ringback tone Ringing tone (audible ringing, also ringback tone) is a signaling tone in telecommunication that is heard by the originator of a telephone call while the destination terminal is alerting the receiving party. The tone is typically a repeated cade ...

as if the call were being completed, misleading callers to think they may have actually gotten through the swarm of other calls that sometimes flood these lines. Within the

North American Numbering Plan The North American Numbering Plan (NANP) is an integrated telephone numbering plan for twenty-five regions in twenty countries, primarily in North America and the Caribbean. This group is historically known as World Zone 1, World Numbering Zone ...

, telephone companies typically use special numbers for these lines, with a reserved

prefix A prefix is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. Particularly in the study of languages, a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the word to which it is affixed. Prefixes, like other affixes, can b ...

corresponding to high-capacity multi-line numbers instead of to a physical

telephone exchange A telephone exchange, telephone switch, or central office is a central component of a telecommunications system in the public switched telephone network (PSTN) or in large enterprises. It facilitates the establishment of communication circuits ...

. In

Miami Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...

, for example, numbers are 305-550-''xxxx'', while in

metro Atlanta Metro Atlanta, designated by the United States Office of Management and Budget as the Atlanta–Sandy Springs–Roswell metropolitan statistical area, is the most populous metropolitan statistical area in the U.S. state of Georgia and the sixt ...

they are 404-741-''xxxx''. The last four digits are usually chosen by the station to be their

callsign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally assi ...

frequency Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit of time. Frequency is an important parameter used in science and engineering to specify the rate of oscillatory and vibratory phenomena, such as mechanical vibrations, audio ...

, or their

moniker A nickname, in some circumstances also known as a sobriquet, or informally a "moniker", is an informal substitute for the proper name of a person, place, or thing, used to express affection, playfulness, contempt, or a particular character trait ...

if it is short (such as B937 (2937) for a fictional B-93.7 FM). Several stations upon moving to new studios have abandoned these prefixes due to their dependence on older technologies. When used on a

radio Radio is the technology of communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connec ...

television program A television show, TV program (), or simply a TV show, is the general reference to any content produced for viewing on a television set that is broadcast via Terrestrial television, over-the-air, Satellite television, satellite, and cable te ...

carried on a

broadcast network A terrestrial network (or broadcast network in the United States) is a group of radio stations, television stations, or other electronic media outlets, that form an agreement to air, or broadcast, content from a centralized source. For example, ...

, such a number is usually a

toll-free telephone number A toll-free telephone number or freephone number is a telephone number that is billed for all arriving calls. For the calling party, a call to a toll-free number is free of charge, unless air-charges apply for mobile telephone service. A toll-free ...

, without a special number since it simply redirects to a local request line circuit. This allows anyone to call regardless of the location, even from a

payphone A payphone (alternative spelling: pay phone or pay telephone or public phone) is typically a coin-operated public telephone, often located in a telephone booth or in high-traffic public areas. Prepayment is required by inserting coins or tel ...

. Some stations may have vertical service codes for use by

mobile telephone A mobile phone or cell phone is a portable telephone that allows users to make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while moving within a designated telephone service area, unlike fixed-location phones ( landline phones). This radio ...

s. These are also common in the United States for TV stations to advertise for gathering news tips from the public, but are often specific to callers on a certain sponsoring mobile telephone company.

Screening and editing

Calls typically come into the studio on a multi-line telephone system, which is equipped to connect callers to the

audio console A mixing console or mixing desk is an electronic device for mixing audio signals, used in sound recording and reproduction and sound reinforcement systems. Inputs to the console include microphones, signals from electric or electronic instr ...

and onto the air via a

telephone hybrid In analog telephony, a telephone hybrid is the component at the ends of a subscriber line of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) that converts between two-wire and four-wire forms of bidirectional audio paths. When used in broadcast faci ...

. However, in modern broadcasting, this is not always the case. Call screeners may take the calls initially in an adjacent room (or simply away from the

microphone A microphone, colloquially called a mic (), or mike, is a transducer that converts sound into an electrical signal. Microphones are used in many applications such as telephones, hearing aids, public address systems for concert halls and publi ...

), in order to determine which ones would get onto the air, with the screener entering the caller's name and city into the station's

automation Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, mainly by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machine ...

system to allow the on-air personality to introduce the caller. This in turn alerts the caller, who has often been on hold for several minutes and may be listening to the radio or TV instead of the line, that they are now on the air. Such a notification is often also a part of broadcast law if the caller may not have called with the expectation of being on the air. A brief

broadcast delay In radio and television, broadcast delay is an intentional delay when broadcasting live material, technically referred to as a deferred live. Such a delay may be to prevent mistakes or unacceptable content from being broadcast. Longer delays las ...

may be used to allow

profanity Profanity, also known as swearing, cursing, or cussing, is the usage of notionally word taboo, offensive words for a variety of purposes, including to demonstrate disrespect or negativity, to relieve pain, to express a strong emotion (such a ...

or other inappropriate content (and possibly the caller) to be dropped, or voice tracking may be used to record calls to a computer, where the call can be digitally edited for time and content. Often with programs such as ''

Delilah Delilah ( ; , meaning "delicate";Gesenius's ''Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon'' ; ) is a woman mentioned in the sixteenth chapter of the Book of Judges in the Hebrew Bible. She is loved by Samson, a Nazirite who possesses great strength and serves as t ...

'', the line may be active even when the show is not broadcasting and direct to an answering service where the screener will determine if the caller's request and story works with the show and help the caller provide a proper tone when they're on-air, and the host will speak to the caller during the day before the show airs to edit the call and seamlessly edit it into a show's timeline; as ''Delilah'' has multiple shows for different radio formats, this may mean that a call will not air on certain stations if the caller's song choice is incompatible with its usual playlist. For call-in contests, the caller is often told immediately by the on-air personality while off-air if they have won while the song plays on-air, a live reaction is recorded for playback after the song ends, and while it airs on the radio, the caller's required information is being taken by the screener to make sure the caller is eligible to win the contest and to inform them of guidelines to pick up the prize.

References

{{reflist Broadcasting Telephony