The following appeared in a memorandum issued by a large city’s council on the arts:“In a recent citywide poll, 15 percent more residents said that they watch television programs about the visual arts than was the case in a poll conducted five years a

The above appeal that some of the city’s funds used to support arts should be reallocated to public television is flawed due to several reasons as pointed out below:

First, it has not been made clear if all the population compulsorily participates in the citywide poll. There might be a chance that some people who are being considered as an increase in viewership may have not participated in poll five years back but would have still watched the television program.

Second, it has been mentioned that there is a 15% increase in viewership of television program on visual arts and a similar percentage increase in people visiting city’s art museum but the bases of these percentage may or may not be similar. While the television viewership may have increased by a larger number, the number of people visiting the art museum may be very low comparatively. In that case, it is arguable if the television programme is really effective. In contrast if the increase in number of people visiting the art museum may be quite large compared to the increase in program viewership, in that case, there are other factors influencing people to visit art museums like say, word of mouth advertising or school trip being planned there. Again the effectiveness of the visual arts television program cannot be correctly judged.

Third, the increase/decrease in the number of visitors to the art museums may depend not only on advertising/awareness/promotion through the television program, but it may also vary depending on the visitor’s interest in art, their experience on visiting the art museum, the cost of entry fee for each visitor, affordability of the city’s population, convenience of the hours of operation of the museum, what new addition in art is being offered by the art museum and several such factors. So, even if there is a cut in the corporate funding for the art programmes on the public television channel, there might not be any change in the number of visitors to the museum.

Fourth, it has not been mentioned in the poll that only programs on visual arts shown on the public television is being considered. The poll conducted on the people of the city did not clearly mention if the people who claimed to view the television program on arts saw it on the public channel only and not in any private television channel.

Fifth, most of the programs on visual arts may be shown on the public television channel but a few programs are also shown on the private television. The impact of those programs on the increase in the number of visitors to the art museum has not been considered but could be significant.

Unless, the above points are known with surety, the appeal cannot be considered a valid one.