A request is a frequently offered feature by some form of broadcasting entity, initially started in radio.
Many disk jockeys have built their entire act and reputation around their method of dealing with requests.
Anticipated by the success of some local TV stations, MTV took the concept to the broader television market with Dial MTV and subsequently the long running Total Request Live.
Tallies of the number of requests (for specific items) are frequently kept as that is an indicator of what is popular or a set period of time.
[2] Many radio stations have published weekly surveys and based entire components of their programming on the statistics of the requests they receive.