<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Tempus sans ITC, Papyrus,Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#000000"><font size=2 face="Tempus sans ITC, Papyrus,Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by BarbT:
helpful or harmful? ....

Kept in perspective I guess it can't hurt!</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

It's a bit of both, and I think your last comment is closer to reality.

In my opinion (as a former "rabid" fan lol), radio and media expect a certain amount of organized requesting from the active fan base. And to a degree, it can help give a song or an artist a helpful push. Like when Darren does radio interviews. The entire point of those interviews is for the station to get attention and for Darren to promote his song, so yeah....... the station expects and wants to hear from his fans. YES, they want real listeners. But I think they also are counting on the active fan base to give things a push for the average listener.

Having said that, it can easily go too far and become openly manipulative. Faking email addresses to make it look like one person is actually ten is very bad. Pretending to be a listener when you're not is also bad. And these are the types of things that will piss a station off in record time.

There is also the question of when it's time to stop. I think organized requesting becomes harmful once the cd or song has run it's course and all the active fans are trying to do is artifically extend it's shelf life. That's a hard thing to know, but it's also important. Because there comes a point when radio has made up it's mind about a given song, and all continued pushing will accomplish is to annoy the djs and program directors.