The following appeared in a memorandum from the manager of WWAC radio station.
"WWAC must change from its current rock-music format because the number of listeners has been declining, even though the population in our listening area has been growing. The population growth has resulted mainly from people moving to our area after their retirement, and we must make listeners of these new residents. But they seem to have limited interest in music: several local stores selling recorded music have recently closed. Therefore, just changing to another kind of music is not going to increase our audience. Instead, we should adopt a news-and-talk format, a form of radio that is increasingly popular in our area."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
The manager of WWAC radio station states that they are losing their popularity and to counter that, they must switch from rock music format to a news-and-talk format which is quite popular in their area. Author thinks that the decline in their radio station’s popularity is because of the increasing population of retired people who do not particularly seem to be inclined towards music since the local stores selling music have shut down recently. This argument and its corresponding recommendations can be accredited if the following three questions are answered.
First and foremost, is the decline in listeners due to the rock-music format of WWAC radio station? It could maybe because people are not finding time to listen to radio in their busy schedules, or it could be only temporary drop in listeners due to other factors like peak work or festive seasons, radio connectivity issues in the area or even a football season which would be broadcasted on the radio for next few weeks. A study on decline in rock music listeners on WWAC radio has to be performed over an extended period of time to answer this question.
Secondly, does the closing of local music record selling stores link directly to the radio station’s reduced popularity coming from the new residents who supposedly seem to have limited interest in music? It could be that the music record stores moved to a different locality because of other business-related reasons like cheaper land, easy access to storage housed and transport facilities. It is very much possible that the stores selling music were never selling rock genre and closed due to decline in the music lovers of other genres they were selling. Another possibility could be people using internet for listening to music which provides them instant access to numerous latest tracks at the click of a button.
Another question to be answered is if switching to news-and-talk kind of radio format actually bring more listeners? The author states that the mentioned format is increasingly popular in their area but that might not be true in their listening area. Perhaps, the people there do not like news-and-talk or it is even possible that the popularity increase is a false claim since there is no data supporting it.
Even if all the above questions are answered, the root cause of WWAC radio stations’ declining listener population has to be addressed. It could be because of overall radio station business’s downfall as the new age electronics and internet make their space in people’s life and nothing to do with the radio format. The new population might also not be linking WWAC’s content, quality or presenter’s skills. Radio station’s manager’s claim of switching to news-and-talk based on declining popularity is baseless and needs a lot more deep dive to decide the future form
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 2 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 469 350
No. of Characters: 2327 1500
No. of Different Words: 223 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.654 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.962 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.672 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 165 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 123 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 82 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 54 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 27.588 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.106 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.412 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.356 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.588 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.08 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 519, Rule ID: PERIOD_OF_TIME[1]
Message: Use simply 'period'.
Suggestion: period
...io has to be performed over an extended period of time to answer this question. Secondly, ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, if, may, second, secondly, so, as to, kind of
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 28.0 19.6327345309 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 18.0 11.1786427146 161% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 63.0 55.5748502994 113% => OK
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2387.0 2260.96107784 106% => OK
No of words: 469.0 441.139720559 106% => OK
Chars per words: 5.08955223881 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.65364457471 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.78534033069 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 227.0 204.123752495 111% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.484008528785 0.468620217663 103% => OK
syllable_count: 746.1 705.55239521 106% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 0.0 4.22255489022 0% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 27.0 22.8473053892 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 55.3539100997 57.8364921388 96% => OK
Chars per sentence: 140.411764706 119.503703932 117% => OK
Words per sentence: 27.5882352941 23.324526521 118% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.29411764706 5.70786347227 75% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 2.0 6.88822355289 29% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.306579119194 0.218282227539 140% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.119664129453 0.0743258471296 161% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0790200782789 0.0701772020484 113% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.192720651011 0.128457276422 150% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0600863011635 0.0628817314937 96% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.3 14.3799401198 113% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 44.07 48.3550499002 91% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 12.197005988 113% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.54 12.5979740519 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.54 8.32208582834 103% => OK
difficult_words: 106.0 98.500998004 108% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.8 11.1389221557 115% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.9071856287 109% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.