Playing Requests on Cat Country 102.9 Has Changed Over the Years
One of the things that I've had to fight my radio station bosses about for the better part of 40 years of doing this is playing requests.
When I started in radio, my program director was my dad. And one of the first things he taught me about the business was to play requests. He told me that if someone took time to find a phone and call the radio station, then the least we could do is play their song. Simple theory. And one I've always agreed with.
The only exception is when you have somebody call in for the same song at the same time every day.
For many years, Paul and I did The Golden Oldies hour here on Cat Country. And one day we had a consultant in from Seattle. She was horrified that we let people who listen to the radio station pick which songs got played on the air.
Rather than argue with her, I just said that we would wait for the ratings to come out. And when they did, if we were anywhere other than first place for the 9-10 hour, we'd go back to the songs that she was scheduling.
The next rating arrived. We were number one. And we never heard from her again.
Now we can't play every single request every single time. But I do try to get those played for folks when they call. I feel it's extremely important to play songs for folks when they have lost a loved one.
I've played Vince Gills's "Go Rest High On That Mountain" more times than I can count. But was happy to play it each time. Those things matter to folks, especially when they are hurting.
But most of those songs aren't on our computers anymore. And we can't get parts for our ancient cd players, so no more oldies segment.