Heard or seen something on the radio and TV lately that appalled/delighted/enlightened you? Of course you have. That's what Station Break with Paul Farhi is here for. Local stations, cable, radio shows, commercials -- they're all fair game.

Farhi, a reporter in the Post's Style section, writes about media and popular culture. He's been watching TV and listening to the radio since "The Monkees" were in first run and Adam West was a star. Born in Brooklyn and raised in Los Angeles, Farhi had brief stints in the movie business (as an usher at the Picwood Theater), and in the auto industry (rental-car lot guy) before devoting himself fulltime to word processing. His car has 15 radio pre-sets and his cable system has 75 channels. He vows to use all of them for good instead of evil.

The transcript follows.

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

Paul Farhi: Happy glorious spring, cubicle slaves! The weather's so lovely that I've almost forgotten the $1,800 transmission replacement bill I'm about to be handed by my local auto mechanic/highway robber. But enough about my problems; let's talk about my opinions (and, okay, if you insist, yours, too). Clay or Ruben? Jack or Kingsley? And Bill Press is out at WMAL-AM's morning drive show, the one we're always describing as "troubled." Thoughts, anyone? I see some hands in the back...

Arlington, Va.: How the hell can I start watching 24 now?! I know that it is supposed to be good... but I fear I have missed too much to "get it." True?

Paul Farhi: Oh, yes, true. I don't know what the people who caught on to "24" by sticking around after "American Idol" were thinking. And those people have only gotten the very bad tail end of what had been a very good second season. A shame if you ask me, and you did.

Overlea, Md.: Hi Paul. My favorite radio station is Party 93.1FM -- from Miami/Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.! They play CHR/Dance music and they stream live on the Internet. I was wondering, is there a chance in the near future that Washington or Baltimore will once again hear a station similar to the former Z104 and B102.7? Have you heard any rumblings from your various radio sources of a possible return to this format? Sorry, but HOT99.5 doesn't count. They're more CHR with Urban flava'! Thanks!

Paul Farhi: Don't know Party 93.1 (and isn't THAT an interesting call?) But what you describe does sound like 99.5 here, or close to it. Rumblings of something similar here? None at all.

Arlington, Va.: RE: WMAL --

Bring back Harden and Weaver!

Okay, totally impossible, but if Local Radio would try to be more LOCAL, I may start listening again.

Paul Farhi: I don't think the morning show's problem is its lack of local-ness(aside from Chris Core's show, it's the only local thing on 'MAL). The problem is the "chemistry" of the three (soon to be two) hosts, which I think Disney/WMAL management understands. Fixing it is going to be difficult, though.

College Park, Md.: Can you explain to me WARW the Arrow, 94.7?

It is a somewhat bizarre station, like a top40 station, but only tired classic rock songs.

Last Sunday morning I heard who I think was Aq, one of my favorite DJs from when WHFS was so much better and less corporate than it is now, but the WARW Web site only focuses on three DJs (Coleter, Kessler Zoo crew and Cerphe). Is this station run by mechanized corporate suits when these three DJs are not on?

Paul Farhi: "Tired" classic rock songs? Well, they're not making any new ones (at least new ones from the 70s and 80s, which is what Arrow mostly plays), so they've got a somewhat limited playlist by definition. As for mechanized corporate suits, well, no knock on Arrow specifically, but doesn't that pretty much describe Big Radio generally?

Help me understand: Many, many quotes and stories about how the American Idol backers would prefer to see Ruben win. Yet, by almost any measure you want to take, Clay is the one mobilizing the public (he's the subject of too many Web sites, chat rooms, on-line papers, etc., to name). Wouldn't that make him the one most likely to make the backers rich? What is their issue?

Paul Farhi: The question you're asking is, which one is the most marketable, post-"Idol," rather than who's the better singer? I'll take Ruben in the latter category, but I'm guessing Clay wins the former. He's a teeny bopper poster boy already. Those squealing girls who love him will buy his records, moreso than Ruben, at least.

DuPont Circle, Washington, D.C.: If Washington gets a major league baseball team, who would likely carry it on radio?

Paul Farhi: Interesting. WTOP? Naw. WMAL or WTEM? More likely, I'd guess. Gotta be an AM station, for sure...

Quantico, Va.: Who did the best local job of covering the Iraq war on TV? And on radio?

Paul Farhi: WTOP on radio, but whadya expect? They constantly fed the CBS updates, which had me popping my (radio) buttons their way during the height of things. Plus, they had a local guy (Chaz Henry) over there, which showed some commitment. TV-wise, no one stood out. Was there something good I missed?

Petworth, Washington, D.C.: Does WTOP have anybody on who balances the very left-leaning Mark Plotkin?

Paul Farhi: No. But that's one of the things that makes Mark interesting. Imagine this: an actual liberal all by his lonesome! No right-winger to babysit him, and to balance off his fulminations! Hardly ever happens anymore.

Baseball in Washington, D.C.: Another baseball questions for you -- if D.C. ever gets a team, would D.C. radio continue to broadcast Orioles games?

Paul Farhi: Yes, because Peter Angelos would sell the rights for a song. There would still be some residual value in Orioles games 'round here, at least for a few more years until we were weaned away.

Van Ness, Washington, D.C.: Classic Rock - Jeez, can't these droids find some new tracks? I lived in Cape Town for two years and heard classic tracks that I haven't heard since my turntable was mothballed. I come back to DC and WARW is still playing the same 20 songs?!

I think I'm part of a fat demographic (male, 40, married) that was Raised On Radio. I don't want to sling CDs or get a satellite set.

You know you're old when you're the only one in the room who's experienced a Block Party Weedend!

Paul Farhi: Thanks, Van Ness. I am feeling very old...

Manassas, Va.: Oh Ruben....definitely Ruben. The way he sang "Sweet Home Alabama" and "If ever you're in my arms again" made me swoon! Besides, I'll enjoy watching Simon trying to make a star of someone who isn't a size two (not that Kelly Clarkson is a size two, but I think you know what I mean). Ruben has a voice and personality that is just awesome. Go Ruben!

Paul Farhi: Okay. Because we are fair and balanced here at Station Break, you'll soon hear from the Clay camp...

Gaithersburg, Md.: I'm rooting for Ruben all the way. I like Clay a lot, but agree with Simon that he's better suited for Broadway.

By the way, this season of '24' has put awful thoughts into my head. First I was hoping that the mountain lion would eat Kim. Then, last week, I was hoping Kate and Kim would die in a gruesome car accident. That's not good....

Paul Farhi: Hey, I said we were fair and balanced...

Long Beach, Calif.: I just read an article by Thom Hartmann that theorizes that liberal talk shows will be emerging AFTER the media consolidation question is decided, which appears to be already done. Before that, the big media outlets did not want to rock the GOP boat. What is your opinion on this?

Paul Farhi: The consolidation thing is irrelevant. Liberal talk shows will emerge when a) a great liberal talk host emerges for national syndication; and b) the audience finds said host. Big media companies, like big companies, are by their nature conservative, but that's not the reason they love conservative talk show hosts. Big media companies, above all, love money and they go with what brings in the dough. Turns out that's conserva-talk.

New York, N.Y.: Can't wait for tonight's finale on 24. Any thoughts on who's the ultimate bad guy is going to turn out to be (the one we thought was on our hero Jack's side)?

Paul Farhi: Two things are guaranteed: Someone relatively important will die, and someone will be exposed as "dirty." My die candidates are Kate Warner (repeating the Terri Bauer death scene of last year's finale), Sherri Palmer (because she deserves it) and Tony Olmeda (not because he deserves it, just because). My dirty candidate is Kate or Keri, the agent who has been clashing with the dear, sweet Michelle.

Laurel, Md.: Why is Bill Press leaving WMAL? When?

Paul Farhi: The official word is he's leaving because his MSNBC gig with Pat Buchanan has been eating up too much of his time. His last show is Friday. Unofficially, the program wasn't doing so hot, although it was creeping up slowly in the ratings. You can draw your own uninformed conclusion from that...

Alexandria, Va.: Definitely Clay because of his outstanding voice and ability to use it -- but Ruben's great too. I'm happy with either outcome.

But contrast that with Mr. Personality. Was it me or was every single man on that show totally creepy? Or was it just the masks? I marginally preferred the guy she chose, because the mind-control guy was even sleazier, but the guy she chose was way too jealous with no cause to be acceptable husband material.

And it is jut me, or are proposals of marriage at three or six weeks (The Bachelor) now considered intelligent conduct by people old enough to know better? Oh wait -- all people on reality shows are stupid or nuts or dishonest, or they wouldn't be there in the first place!

But I still love to watch them, so what does that make me (I don't want to know the answer)?

Paul Farhi: Good. We now have a Clay geek, and the polls can close. As for "Mr. Personality," I, too, am creeped out about the whole thing. Gotta be the masks. Or Monica. Hey, how about putting a mask on Monica?

WTOP: Columnist Cal Thomas (we won't mention the name of the local newspaper in which he appears) is on WTOP Radio every Monday and Wednesday morning. Cal describes himself as "a card-carrying member of the vast-right-wing-conspiracy." Fox News' Tony Snow and Brit Hume are also WTOP regulars. Mark Plotkin is indeed free to "be Mark Plotkin" but there are other opinions heard regularly on WTOP.

Paul Farhi: Yep. Forgot about them. See, the liberals are outvoted again.

Germantown, Md.: There are plenty of liberal talk show hosts. They're all on NPR. And they get STEALTH corporate backing. Those "underwriting" dollars from ADM and other giant corporations are tax sheltered. Corporations have to pay taxes on the money they put into advertising on commercial radio.

Paul Farhi: Oy. Here we go again. NPR may have some liberals, but you have to listen really, really closely to detect the left lean. Whereas conservative hosts pound me over the head day and night. Not complaining, mind you. I'm just sayin'...

24: Have you seen the BBC's site for 24? They are a few episodes behind us, but they have lots of fun quizzes/games for 24 geeks.

Paul Farhi: We're all about public service here. But promise me you won't check it out until the chat is over. Hey, where are you people going....?

Tyson's Corner, Va.: While all the "hip" folks tuned into "24" after each week's "American Idol," the real action was over on CBS, where "The Guardian" was evolving into the best drama on network TV.

I'm probably the only guy who thinks so, but there you have it. The show was hitting on all cylinders during sweeps month. If anything, it packed too much into each episode.

Do you know if "The Guardian" got its clock cleaned in the ratings? I never saw any numbers.

Paul Farhi: "Guardian" does okay, or did until "American Idol" started feeding viewers to "24." But it was always a kind of hollow victory for CBS--"Guardian" draws older viewers, and we know how advertisers feel about them.

24 baddie: No no no. KATE is the bad one. Blood is thick and all that.

Paul Farhi: I can't say that they've given any indication of her badness so far. But the tipoff is having her driving Kim around with only one episode left--you know that means she's bad.

Re: 24: Kate Warner will NOT die. She has signed on to next year's cast. And my guess is she won't be bad either because of that.

Paul Farhi: Ah, wasn't up on the contract renewals. But Nina was dirty last season, and she's back (sort of) this season.

Northwest Washington, D.C.: No axe to grind, left or right. I just want to say I enjoy your chats and your columns.
Would love to read more about radio by you.
(I am NOT related to Paul Farhi)

Paul Farhi: Can you be my editor?

Arlington, Va.: Amazing Race 4 premieres next week. Is CBS giving it a coveted Thursday night timeslot this time around?

Paul Farhi: Eh, it's in throwaway territory regardless. "AR" is a pretty good show, but by putting it on after the final sweeps of the season, CBS is basically saying it's a placeholder. I think it should be an in-season show, which it has been...

Fairfax, Va.: Paul, you wrote: "Unofficially, the program wasn't doing so hot, although it was creeping up slowly in the ratings." I seem to recall that you wrote that the WMAL morning show went DOWN in the last Arbitron while Rush and Hannitty went up. Local guys down, syndicated guys up.

Paul Farhi: Up and down. Last quarter it was down slightly (to a 2.1 share in 25-54), but in the fall book it surged by about 33 percent (to 2.3). In any case, there was some reason for hope there...

Baltimore, Md.: Tax breaks aside, how liberal can NPR's slant really be if multinational corps like ADM continue to underwrite them?

Paul Farhi: Bingo.

Montgomery County, Md.: WTOP may have Cal Thomas and Tony Snow, but Mark Plotkin gets a full hour every Friday and seems to pop up almost seven days a week on WTOP. The few conservatives, on the other hand, seem to get only a minute or two each.
That's a liberal slant to me, Mr. Farhi.

Paul Farhi: Let's throw this one to the WTOP'ers out there. Replies, guys?

Tenleytown, Washington, D.C.: Now I've got you all to myself once the 24 contingent left the building. Tonight: the last episode of Buffy. Rita Kempley did a decent job of discussing the reasons for the Buffy allure, although the cute babes pummeling muscle bound guys if not one another aspect was given short shrift. Are we likely to see anything else soon on regular TV where the writers actually care about subtexts and such stuff?

washingtonpost.com: Fangs for the Memories, Buffy (Post, May 20)

Paul Farhi: I never warmed up to "Buffy" but, yes, it was more than just pulp stuff. And I am contractually bound to respect any show that was beloved by the late, great Jack "Cap'n Airwaves" Carmody, which "Buffy" was.

Alexandria, Va.: I haven't heard... did Boomtown get the axe? Say it ain't so.

Paul Farhi: I won't. "Boom" is back on NBC's fall schedule.

NPR: You have to listen closely to hear the left leanings of NPR? You've got to be kidding me. No they aren't as overt as Rush or Hannity but my gosh, it comes through loud and clear!

Paul Farhi: Quit saying this generally, and serve up a few examples. We'll wait for you...

Herndon, Va.: Don't you think this whole 18-49 thing is increasingly silly? I ask this as a 29 year old. I don't think the baby boomers are going to stop spending money in their 50s and 60s like earlier generations did. Baby boomers seem to have always been more about spending than earlier saving generations. Thoughts?

Paul Farhi: Yes. Just as the Baby Boomers changed many assumptions about marketing and advertising, I think they will change the conventional wisdom about old people. Baby Boomers will probably continue to be big spenders well into their later years because a) they are generally more affluent than their parents; and b) have spent their entire lives buying stuff. I could bore you with more demographic geek-talk, but I'll stop there.

WTOP: We keep it fair and balanced. Proof of the pudding is that exactly half the listeners who complain about "bias" say we have a "left" slant, while the other half says we have a "right" slant. It feels fair and balanced to us. Bias is usually the perception that the story being reported is not favorable to the strongly-held views of the listener(s) complaining at that moment.

Paul Farhi: Straight from the horse's mouth (I think). But did he really say "fair and balanced" un-ironically?

Corporations/NPR: If you think corps don't fund some very liberal causes/organizations, then you're not very well informed about corporate donations. Maybe you should take a look -- would make a good story.

Paul Farhi: Who said corporations don't fund liberal causes? Of course they do. But I'm still waiting for evidence of NPR's consistent liberal bias.

Bowie, Md.: But 50-60 year olds don't CHANGE their preferences with nearly the frequency 25s do. Get someone by 40, they're yours for life.

Paul Farhi: That's the conventional wisdom, yes. But the real problem is that 25 year olds don't "consume" as much media as older people do. That means advertisers have to work harder (that is, run more ads) to get young people to pay attention to them.

Chevy Chase, Washington, D.C.: WTOP sent a reporter over during the Iraq War. But why didn't any of the local TV stations? I would think TV stations have much bigger budgets than radio stations (even one as big as WTOP).

Paul Farhi: Well, Channel 4 sent Doreen Gentzler out to the USS Comfort, the hospital ship, during the war. And, yes, the TV stations do have bigger budgets. I guessing here, but they probably thought they couldn't add much to the tons of footage that their network news sources were supplying them, so why bother chewing up the travel budget? Is that lazy, irresponsible, penny-pinching, an abdication of journalistic responsibility even? Um...yeah.

Yo: Two votes for Ruben, 37 mentions of 24, twelve comments about WMAL, WTOP, and NPR, and one Clay vote. And you closed polls. Mmmmmmmmmm who is biased now?

Paul Farhi: Oh, all right. Have your little democracy then, why don't you. The polls are open again. But I'm warning you: Behave or I'll turn this thing around right now!

Re: College Park: The former 'HFS deejay that is on 94.7 on weekend mornings is Weasel (not Aq). It's a crime hearing him play the Eagles and Yes instead of the Ramones and Dead Kennedies...

Paul Farhi: Gosh, what kind of world would it be if we could turn on the radio (the radio radio, not your fancy satellite radio) and hear the Ramones? Some things are just beyond imagining...

Vienna, Va.: OK, sorry for another 24 question. But something that's been driving my husband and I nuts -- what happened to Nina?! I didn't remember her dying, but did she?!

Paul Farhi: Nina's not dead. She's cooling her evil heals in jail. But I think she's one of those loose ends the producers have simply forgotten. There were, at last count, 6,547 loose ends on "24."

Tall gray office building, Silver Spring: Did I just "hear" you say that Ruben was the better singer? I can only presume you haven't been watching the show or listening very carefully.

Ruben seems to be the favorite, but I can't figure out why. He often sings off-tune, and has the look of the deer in the headlights as soon as he stops singing. So aside from the off tune part, he's almost the Stepford singer.

Clay, on the other hand, has listened to Simon telling him week after week that he is not marketable as a pop singer, he's hard to look at, and he is better suited for Broadway. Yet any music major (ME) or person with an ear for music knows that Clay has the better, more consistent, and more pure voice of the two. He will lose because the producers have probably already decided that he will lose.

Finally, who put Vincent in that fishbowl? Could any other contestant have pulled off that song?

Paul Farhi: I'm sticking with my man Ruben.

Georgetown, Washington, D.C.: I used to enjoy listening to the Orioles on WTOP. But as I understand it, traffic has gotten so bad in our region at every hour of the day or night that people desperately want traffic reports every ten minutes and that's why they dropped the O's and might not carry a new team. BUT, if they controlled the broadcast (instead of taking a feed from WBAL as they did with the Orioles) couldn't they make room for traffic reports after each half inning?

Paul Farhi: That's a little unpredictable, isn't it, given the irregular nature of baseball. The thing that WTOP has perfected, I think, is predictability, especially "traffic and weather together on the :8's." You tune in knowing what will happen when. Baseball would screw with that.

Washington, D.C.: My .02 Cents. Re: WMAL
Put Chris Core in the morning with Andy and run Donaldson in Core's slot. Chris would be great in the morning.

Paul Farhi: Could be. I think they tried that for one whole day! Then Chris went back to his usual slot.

Corps/NPR: My point was that the idea that NPR can't be but so liberal because of its corp sponsorship is a bit naive and uninformed. Corp giving has many varied purposes. I think if you looked into corp giving you might be really surprised by which corps give money to which causes.

Paul Farhi: Yes, but corporations also hate political controversy (i.e., the illusion of "taking sides"). If NPR was generally perceived as too liberal, it would get very little corporate support. Underwriters don't tell news organizations what to cover; but they do exert a negative vote by going somewhere else when the heat gets too hot.

Bethesda, Md.: Read with great interest Marc Fisher's Sunday Outlook piece on radio. Are you and he collaborating on the book he is writing about radio?

washingtonpost.com: Sounds Familiar For a Reason (Post, May 18)

Paul Farhi: I thought that piece was a pretty concise summary of much of the criticism of radio since its consolidation phase began in 1996. I fully expect the National Association of Broadcasters to weigh in with the counter-evidence, if any. And, no, Marc's going solo on his book.

Paul Farhi: Folks, my apologies for not getting to a whole bunch of questions, but the old digital clock on the wall is telling me it's that time again. Much obliged for stopping by. We'll reconvene in two weeks. Please watch your step as you exit out the rear door. Regards to all...Paul.