The following is a memorandum from the business manager of WLSS television station.
“Over the past year, our late-night news program has devoted increasingly more time to covering national news and less time to covering weather and local news. During the same time period, most of the complaints we received from viewers were concerned with the station’s coverage of weather and local news. In addition, several local businesses that used to run advertisements during our late-night news program have just cancelled 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 the 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.
In marketing terms, it is always necessary to ensure a seller doesn't impose on the buyers what they think is worth buying. However, for a value provider to accurately and reliably figure out what the market, in this case the audience, wants is by no means an easy task. The rigourness of marketing research required to correctly reflect the demand of the late-night news program viewers hereby raises a lot of questions.
For once, the viewers' complaints being merely concerned with the coverage doesn't necessarily mean that it's about its magnitude. That is, it might be the quality by which the coverage is introduced is what is really disappointing the audience. To resolve this, those who filed such complaints should be appropriately interviwed and their specific reasons recorded.
Furthermore, linking the decision of local businesses to withdraw their agreements -- with the aforementioned complaints just seems to be arbitrary. So long as we don't know their motives to do so, it would be hard to rule out several other reasons like the channel's pricing of ads, whether any new competitors have offered them an alternative ad space, or even that they aren't just financially unstable. Even more, whether the audience would be willing to engage with national news on specific conditions also seems to be disregarded by the author. By this, I mean that the type and milieu in which national news is shown can still be reconsidered and accordingly modified to attract either the same audience, or even a new segment of television audience.
In conclusion, while the author based his recommendation on feedback from the audience as well as the sponsors, it was poorly analyzed and insufficiently scrutinized such that it can no longer dictate a reasonable decision by the firm. Unless those questions were properly addressed, the newly proposed plan might incur as much losses to the entity, or even more.
Comments
e-rater score 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: 12 15
No. of Words: 317 350
No. of Characters: 1561 1500
No. of Different Words: 192 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.22 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.924 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.845 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 110 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 86 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 66 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 39 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 26.417 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.958 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.583 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.33 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.592 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.064 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 63, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
... is always necessary to ensure a seller doesnt impose on the buyers what they think is...
^^^^^^
Line 3, column 75, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...eing merely concerned with the coverage doesnt necessarily mean that its about its mag...
^^^^^^
Line 5, column 164, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...st seems to be arbitrary. So long as we dont know their motives to do so, it would b...
^^^^
Line 5, column 372, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: aren't
...alternative ad space, or even that they arent just financially unstable. Even more, w...
^^^^^
Line 7, column 324, Rule ID: MUCH_COUNTABLE[1]
Message: Use 'many' with countable nouns.
Suggestion: many
... the newly proposed plan might incur as much losses to the entity, or even more.
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
accordingly, also, furthermore, however, if, really, so, still, well, while, i mean, in conclusion, as well as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.6327345309 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 12.9520958084 54% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 26.0 28.8173652695 90% => OK
Preposition: 38.0 55.5748502994 68% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 16.3942115768 49% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1603.0 2260.96107784 71% => OK
No of words: 313.0 441.139720559 71% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.1214057508 5.12650576532 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.20616286096 4.56307096286 92% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.88505678967 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 191.0 204.123752495 94% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.610223642173 0.468620217663 130% => OK
syllable_count: 498.6 705.55239521 71% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 3.0 8.76447105788 34% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 12.0 19.7664670659 61% => 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: 45.2311194496 57.8364921388 78% => OK
Chars per sentence: 133.583333333 119.503703932 112% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.0833333333 23.324526521 112% => OK
Discourse Markers: 9.16666666667 5.70786347227 161% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 5.0 5.25449101796 95% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 0.0 4.67664670659 0% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.094690931754 0.218282227539 43% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0351521106084 0.0743258471296 47% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0479444586511 0.0701772020484 68% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0480707183093 0.128457276422 37% => Maybe some paragraphs are off the topic.
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0377600492991 0.0628817314937 60% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.7 14.3799401198 109% => 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: 12.71 12.5979740519 101% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.67 8.32208582834 116% => OK
difficult_words: 94.0 98.500998004 95% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.1389221557 111% => 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.