The following appeared in a memorandum from the general manager of KNOW radio station."Several factors indicate that radio station KNOW should shift its programming from rock-androll music to a continuous news format. Consider, for example, that the numbe

The manager of KNOW Radio Station believes that continuing programming rock and roll music would lead to loss of audience. To reverse the trend of losing audience, the author considers a shift of programming toward broadcasting news. This conclusion is grounded in an assumption that as the majority of radio listeners increasingly consist of people over 50 years old, they would not like to listen to such a music. Furthermore, the author cites a comparison between Know radio station and the other station in the neighboring city; the latter becomes successful as it programs the news. The several assumptions are made to reach such a conclusion. With potentially each being unwarranted the argument fails to be persuasive.

First, the author assumes that there is a firm correlation between the increase of the age of listeners and a decreased inclination toward listening to the rock-and-roll music. This assumption is not supported by any evidence. Old people might still love rock and roll as they recall good memories from the past. If this is the case, then the listeners who are getting older would not be an alarm to change the programming. Here other factors might be the reason that such a decline happened in audiences. The quality of the music played in radio might became poor that people prefer listening to them from other devices than radio.

Secondly, the author has taken for granted that the common interest in the music is declining. Merely because the music stores in their area are selling fewer recorded music. May be people and fans buy online music instead of going to the stores and they still love to listen to the music. It is also possible that the decrease is limited to the other genres of music while the rock-and-roll music continues to be sold significantly.

Thirdly, the author hastily assumes that as the other radio station in nearby city has been successful _ because of broadcasting news_ KNOW Station would be as successful when it begins programming news. The compared radio station might be successful, but this does not guarantee that same strategy would stand in good stead for KNOW. The other town audience might more be inclined to certain news broadcast by the radio, while the listeners of KNOW’s area might prefer to follow the news on the television, newspaper or other kinds of media. Furthermore, there might be many rivals that already occupied the news channels and there is no place remained for KNOW to compete with them. Finally, the author failed to consider this change can decrease the audience retention as many audiences have got used to listen this channel for listening to rock-and-roll music and this may not be compensated by the new listeners to news.

In short, the manager of the KNOW Radio Station reaches the conclusion through making several unsupported assumptions. As there are many other alternatives that are not ruled out, the argument cannot be tenable.