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 time period most of the complain

The local television station’s business manager wants to increase delivery of local news at the expense of national news on his station so that he can attract more viewers and greater advertising dollars. This messaging and foresight, though consistent with the discharge of his corporate responsibility—he is not a lawyer, public relations personnel, or his company’s data analyst after all—actually fails to account for various factors that can undermine his argument and make his position unattainable. He is lacking crucial data and some questions to be explored with the team are represented below.

For one, there is the claim that the television station’s late-night news program has devoted an inordinate and greater time to national news than they did last year; all at the expense of weather and local news. This surmises that the time allocated to both programs were comparable in the first place. Maybe there was hardly any national news disseminated to begin with. The raw number of minutes for national news programming may have gone up and local news delivery gone down, but what are those actual numbers? If the amount of national news programming has gone up from one to two hours a week and local news down by the same amount, then it would be nitpicking to ascribe the recent downturn in advertising dollars to the recent change in programming. What if the recent increase in delivery of national news is not only modest but is actually in response to viewer request. What if this was an initiative to ensure the viewers remain committed to the television station and are not completely ignorant of what’s going on in their broader horizon? What if this change had been requested by the viewers themselves? This would certainly give the viewers a positive impression that the TV station is listening to them and would likely encourage greater engagement with the station, as have been noted in the recent complaints about the local news. Also worth noting that the complaints were about already existing local news programming, not the newly instituted national news. If the change had been initiated by the viewers themselves and if this is a direct response to a community need, then it would be presumptive to blame the national news delivery for the recent withdrawal of local business advertising contracts.

Moreover, the manager mentions a number of complaints about the station’s weather and local news coverage without specifying if the complaints were actually from viewers preferring local news to national news. The complaints are about local news after all—not national news. He needs to sort through the data to distinguish viewers who have a problem with the national news from those who have called to provide constructive feedback about improving the quality of the local news programming. Many viewers recognize that the national news programming is a pretty recent phenomenon and may have actually been enjoying its style and delivery method. They may be calling to try and bring up the local news’ delivery to a comparable level. If this is the case, it would be a major blunder to get rid of the national news programming they are starting to get used to. The result would be an abrupt drop in viewership and a possible loss in revenue.

Similarly, the argument presumes without elucidating that some local businesses have canceled their advertising contracts. Have they canceled because of a drop in viewership or because of the increased time devoted to national news? The businesses who canceled may have been needing to do so anyway, and the cancellation may not have been contingent on viewership. Maybe the advertised products are seasonal, or maybe the local economy is down at the moment, in which case expanding viewership past the immediately local region might actually be the right thing to do to increase overall advertising dollars. The memorandum assumes that local businesses who have canceled cannot be replaced by new regional or even national business advertisements. Have they tried reaching out to companies in the greater region with advertising opportunities? The manager’s argument leaves a lot of questions unanswered and a lot of revenue stones unturned: More work needs to be done to maximize the company’s profitability.

This sequence of logic and consequent recommendation is unacceptable from the manager of major local news network. Perhaps he had been engaging with other matters at the national level recently and has not done proper research before making this prescription. Nonetheless, I expect that these questions will be answered either directly by him or by a member of his team before he can make such a sweeping change across his news network.