The following is a memorandum from the business manager of a television station."Over the past year, our late-night news program has devoted increased time to national news and less time to weather and local news. During this period, most of the complaint

The author's argument that in order to attract more viewers to his television channel's news programs and to avoid losing any further advertising revenues the TV station should expand the coverage of weather and local news on all its news programs, may seem to be logical at the first glance. The author's conclusion may be correct if its premises were to be true. However, the author has made use of assumptions for which there is no supporting evidence and terms that lack definition.

Firstly, the author has stated that his TV station's late-night news program has devoted increased time to national news and less time to weather and local news over the past year. In that period most of the complaints received from viewers were concerned with his station's coverageof weather and local news. Based on the percentage of complaints the author has assumed that a majority of listners are dissatisfied with the TV station giving more time to national news than local news and weather forecast, as a result there is a posibility of decrease in the number of viewers.

However, he has not provided enough statistical data to support his viewpoint. For example, the overallnumber of complaints may have decreased by a large amount since the TV station's move to expand time for national news in the late night news program. If this is the case, then even if a majority of complaints are viewers who were dissatisfied with the TV station's local news and weather forecast coverage, it does not prove that the majoority of viewers are dissatisfied. Thus, a large majority of viewer base may be satisfied with increased national news than local news and the complaints received may just be a natural reaction to change.

Secondly, the author has assumed that the decreased coverage of local news and weather forecast in late night news program has caused a decrease in local viewership, which in-turn has discouraged local buisnessmen who have cancelled their advertising contracts with the TV station. Here the author has falied to examine other possible reasons which could have caused the advertisement cancellation. For example, there may be other television stations who may be offering cheaper avenues for advertisements and may have attracted the local buisnessmen. The local buisnessmen may have switched to other means of advertising like the internet. If the author were to provide some specific evidence to link the cancellation of local advertisements with decrease of local news, it would have lent considerable strength to his argument.

Summing up, the author may be correct in his argument that with increased coverage of weather and local news on all the news programs, the TV station may increase its viewership and avoid losing any further advertising revenues. However, his hypothesis is based on assumptions for which there is no corroborating evidence given. If the author's recommendation is to have desired effect he needs to provide statistical and anlytic data to back up his assumptions.