Two years ago, radio station WCQP in Rockville decided to increase the number of call-in advice programs that it broadcast; since that time, its share of the radio audience in the Rockville listening area has increased significantly. Given WCQP's recent success with call-in advice programming, and citing a nationwide survey indicating that many radio listeners are quite interested in such programs, the station manager of KICK in Medway recommends that KICK include more call-in advice programs in an attempt to gain a larger audience share in its listening area.
The station manager of KICK offers the recommendation that they include more call in advice programs to gain more audience based on two pieces of evidence. One is that radio station WCQP was successful after employing such change in broadcasting and the other is a survey showing the interest of listeners in this kind of programs. However, several questions need to be answered before carrying out the proposed solution.
First, we don’t know if KICK radio station is comparable to WCQP with regard to audience characteristics. The two radio stations serve different region and we don’t know if their audience is of the same age and socioecomic status, which may be associated with their taste and preference for radio programs. If the main audience of one station is old people who are retired while that of the other is mainly young people who are working, we would expect different results of implementing the suggestion.
In addition, we do not know if the two stations have similar radio programs or totally different programs. If one has no or minimal call in advice programs then adding the program would likely to increase the audience. If one has already many such programs, it is likely the field is saturated and not likely to further contribute to gaining listeners. Thus, we need to know if KICK had the same lack of investment in call in advice programs as WCQP.
Thirdly, we do not know if the increased listeners is actually a results of increasing the number of call-in advice programs. No evidence is provided other than the observation that the two events were concomitant. What are the other changes that might contribute to the recent success in WCQP? Did they change anchors or invite celebrity to their programs? What topics were the call in advice programs focused? Without answering these questions, and merely boost the number of such programs may result in ineffectiveness.
Finally, we don’t know if the results from the nationwide survey is applicable to the local area KICK station serves. If the survey respondents are completely different in age, sex, occupation, etc, then it is likely that the results cannot represent the taste and preference of medway area. Although there might be nationwide interest and a trend to listen to call in advice programs, we could not know if the same is happening in medway without the data from the radio programs. We need to know if the medway listeners are anticipating or ready for this change. It is entirely possible the audience are conservative and would prefer the traditional programs.
In conclusion, although the KICK station manager suggests a way to attract more listeners based on some evidence, we still need to figure out the questions as discussed above in order to evaluate the effectiveness of this suggestion.
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: 22 15
No. of Words: 471 350
No. of Characters: 2284 1500
No. of Different Words: 202 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.659 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.849 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.704 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 170 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 127 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 92 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 50 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.409 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.354 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.727 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.338 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.338 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.175 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 118, Rule ID: NOW[2]
Message: Did you mean 'now' (=at this moment) instead of 'no' (negation)?
Suggestion: now
... totally different programs. If one has no or minimal call in advice programs then...
^^
Line 4, column 64, Rule ID: A_PLURAL[1]
Message: Don't use indefinite articles with plural words. Did you mean 'a result' or simply 'results'?
Suggestion: a result; results
... if the increased listeners is actually a results of increasing the number of call-in adv...
^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, finally, first, however, if, may, so, still, then, third, thirdly, thus, while, in addition, in conclusion, kind of, with regard to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 26.0 19.6327345309 132% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 28.0 28.8173652695 97% => OK
Preposition: 60.0 55.5748502994 108% => OK
Nominalization: 24.0 16.3942115768 146% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2344.0 2260.96107784 104% => OK
No of words: 468.0 441.139720559 106% => OK
Chars per words: 5.00854700855 5.12650576532 98% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.65116196802 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.79034631917 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 205.0 204.123752495 100% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.438034188034 0.468620217663 93% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 731.7 705.55239521 104% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 11.0 4.96107784431 222% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 2.0 8.76447105788 23% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 19.7664670659 111% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 48.0266799131 57.8364921388 83% => OK
Chars per sentence: 106.545454545 119.503703932 89% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.2727272727 23.324526521 91% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.63636363636 5.70786347227 116% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 8.20758483034 158% => 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: 0.25246750111 0.218282227539 116% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0814746716431 0.0743258471296 110% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0597883115044 0.0701772020484 85% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.139333900979 0.128457276422 108% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0599911179501 0.0628817314937 95% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.8 14.3799401198 89% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.78 12.5979740519 94% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.19 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 104.0 98.500998004 106% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => 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.