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 complaints received from viewers were concerned with our station's coverage of weather and local news. In addition, local businesses that used to advertise during our late-night news program have canceled their advertising contracts with us. Therefore, in order to attract more viewers to our news programs and to avoid losing any further advertising revenues, we should expand our coverage of weather and local news on all our news programs."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
First and foremost, it is important to find out why the TV station has decided to increase the coverage of national news in its late-night show and not any other time of the day. People who have keen interests in such matters might both prefer the news broadcast during other hours, like morning or evening, and not be available at the late-night hours to pursue the news.
Similarly, it would be necessary to correlate the viewer complaints with their interests and backgrounds and analyze it on a whole with the entire viewer base to see what proportion of the viewers are actually concerned with the type of news covered and at what time. A suitably designed survey to identify interests of the viewers and the time of their availability for the same would help the company to make more informed decisions and organize their programs accordingly.
Moreover, it is also not clear what issues are covered in the national news. Is it about sports? Or does it cover the economics of the state? Or does it seek to inform the viewers about the standing of the nation on the international front? These key areas might help in narrowing down the best subject matter to be discussed in the late-night show.
Also, as worded in the memorandum, it is really ambiguous whether the complaints are about the reduced coverage of the local and weather news or the viewers want the aforesaid coverage to be minimized further. Categorizing the complaints in different domains will be able to better tackle the issue, by identifying the specific problems faced with the recent overhaul.
Besides, it has also not been made clear by the company or the local businesses as to why the latter have cancelled their contracts with the former. The company should identify their concerns and ask them their specific requirements which might be made part of the contract(s).
Thus, overall it can be said that the company has taken a haphazard decision to revamp its previous news program without taking into consideration the needs and interests of the stakeholders involved, including the advertising partners and the consumers (i.e., the viewers). A proper and comprehensive survey to take into account the expectations of the viewers along with a discussion with the advertising partners to note their terms of operation are needed to ensure more revenues and a better viewer base.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 398 350
No. of Characters: 1926 1500
No. of Different Words: 200 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.467 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.839 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.672 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 135 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 106 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 77 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 49 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.533 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.021 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.467 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.325 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.325 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.086 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
accordingly, actually, also, besides, first, if, moreover, really, similarly, so, thus, as to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 19.0 11.1786427146 170% => OK
Relative clauses : 3.0 13.6137724551 22% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 59.0 55.5748502994 106% => OK
Nominalization: 4.0 16.3942115768 24% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1965.0 2260.96107784 87% => OK
No of words: 397.0 441.139720559 90% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.94962216625 5.12650576532 97% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.46372701284 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.70633783502 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 202.0 204.123752495 99% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.508816120907 0.468620217663 109% => OK
syllable_count: 615.6 705.55239521 87% => 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: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 4.22255489022 47% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 19.7664670659 76% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 26.0 22.8473053892 114% => OK
Sentence length SD: 74.5977658289 57.8364921388 129% => OK
Chars per sentence: 131.0 119.503703932 110% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.4666666667 23.324526521 113% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.2 5.70786347227 109% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.67664670659 86% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.184446823906 0.218282227539 84% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0620977876124 0.0743258471296 84% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0652105694335 0.0701772020484 93% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0966266432439 0.128457276422 75% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0746223856367 0.0628817314937 119% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.1 14.3799401198 105% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 45.09 48.3550499002 93% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.73 12.5979740519 93% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.66 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 94.0 98.500998004 95% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 18.0 12.3882235529 145% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => 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.