The following is a memorandum from the business manager of a television station. "over the past year our late-night news program has devoted increase time to National new and less time to weather and local news. most of the complaints received from viewers were concerned with our stations coverage of weather and local news. in addition local business that used to advertise during our late-night news program have just canceled their advertising contracts with us. therefore in order to attract more viewers to the program and to avoid losing any further advertising Revenue we should restore the time devoted to weather and local news to its former level."
Write a response in which you discuss what specific added evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
In this memorandum, the business manager of a television station, recommends for restoring the time devoted to weather and local news during the late-night news programme, to attract more local audiences and in turn increased advertisers and revenue.
However, the recommendation in its present form is not without its flaws, and needs more specific evidence - related to viewership and adverstising, among others, to strengthen the argument and consider it viable.
To begin with, the first-piece of evidence required to bolster this recommendation is the answer to the question - why did he local advertisers cancel their contract with the television channel? Perhaps, the rate of advertisement of the television channel has increased and they are no longer able to afford the air-time. Alternately, a rival television channel may be offering them discounts on their advertising, which the local businesses find more lucrative? If the answer to any of these questions is affirmative, then restoring weather and local news in the late-night news programme is unlikely to have any effect on upping the revenue of the channel. Instead, the business manager can conduct a detailed study into the matter - asking the advertisers for the true reasons behind their exit from the channel and accordingly devise some alternate recommendations to bring them back.
Secondly, the business manager mentions about viewers' complaints related to coverage of weather and local news by the television channel, but fails to elaborate on this "complaint". Have the viewers specifically complained about the "lack" or "reduced" coverage of these news categories in the "late-night news"? Or have they complained about the overall coverage (or the lack of it) of local and weather news by the channel throughout the day? The nature of these complaints are not ellucidated. Perhaps the local people may be interested in getting regular updates on weather throughout the day, instead of just in the late-night news programme? Alternately, they may feel that too much air-time is being devoted to local news, while entertainment or sports news - generally liked by the audiences - is being ignored. If the answer to the above queries is true, then the recommendation of the business manager is significantly weakened, as restoring local and weather news in late-night programme is unlikely to attract more viewers, and thus more advertising revenue. It may be profitable for the channel may conduct a survey among the local viewers to find out what kind of content they would like to see, before taking a call on the matter.
Further, the business manager does not substantiate the term "more viewers" - whether the channel has seen a dip in its viewership or only in its local advertising revenue. It may be possible that the local viewership is intact or has increased, or perhaps the national viewership has increased owing to the increased air-time devotion to national news, and thus the local advertisers have pulled back due to this reasons. It may be prudent for the channel to look at alternatives of local business advertisers, perhaps by offering some attractive promotional options to national advertisers.
Thus, in conclusion, the recommendation as it stands is seriously flawed. Unless a detailed analysis is done into the viewership figures, the content sought by the viewers and the reasons leading to the decrease in the local advertising revenue, the recommendation does not hold much water, as it is, and will not benefit the television channel in improving its advertising revenue.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 567 350
No. of Characters: 2933 1500
No. of Different Words: 224 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.88 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.173 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.933 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 221 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 193 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 121 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 85 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 28.35 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.845 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.65 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.357 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.357 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.12 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 420, Rule ID: THIS_NNS[1]
Message: Did you mean 'these'?
Suggestion: these
...cal advertisers have pulled back due to this reasons. It may be prudent for the chan...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
accordingly, but, first, however, if, look, may, second, secondly, so, then, thus, while, in conclusion, kind of, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 24.0 11.1786427146 215% => Less conjunction wanted
Relative clauses : 3.0 13.6137724551 22% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 82.0 55.5748502994 148% => OK
Nominalization: 13.0 16.3942115768 79% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3061.0 2260.96107784 135% => OK
No of words: 567.0 441.139720559 129% => OK
Chars per words: 5.39858906526 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.87972968509 4.56307096286 107% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.23474349972 2.78398813304 116% => OK
Unique words: 245.0 204.123752495 120% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.432098765432 0.468620217663 92% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 961.2 705.55239521 136% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 8.0 1.67365269461 478% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 8.0 4.22255489022 189% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 28.0 22.8473053892 123% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 59.8853905389 57.8364921388 104% => OK
Chars per sentence: 153.05 119.503703932 128% => OK
Words per sentence: 28.35 23.324526521 122% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.35 5.70786347227 111% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.304013756906 0.218282227539 139% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.104734579114 0.0743258471296 141% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.086301234355 0.0701772020484 123% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.169984759078 0.128457276422 132% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.126433662775 0.0628817314937 201% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 18.2 14.3799401198 127% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 34.6 48.3550499002 72% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.4 12.197005988 126% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.34 12.5979740519 114% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.62 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 129.0 98.500998004 131% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 19.5 12.3882235529 157% => OK
gunning_fog: 13.2 11.1389221557 119% => OK
text_standard: 20.0 11.9071856287 168% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.