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 re

The business manager takes a firm position and concludes that the television station should retreat to their past allotment for the coverage time of local news and weather to retain potential consumers of the shows and also to sustain the financial benefits from the advertising. The author has come to this conclusion based on the cancellation of advertising in the tv station in recent times and the number of complaints regarding the local news coverage was received after the coverage truncation that occurred earlier. However, before this recommendation can be evaluated, two important questions must be answered.
First of all, it should be reasonably justified that the local news and weather coverage time shrinkage is or is not a precursor of the recent antipathy of the mentioned advertisers. It is evident from the author’s argument that the modification in the coverage time was undertaken one year ago; on the other hand, as the manager writes, the abandonment of the advertising had just occurred lately. If the author’s assumption is legit then the cancellation should have been enacted just after the modification was accomplished. However, this was not the case. Rather, it can be sensed that some other unknown factors were playing their parts to demotivate advertisers from using this particular channel as their marketing platform. Further, there is a possibility that the overall trend of marketing in the region might have shifted to print media from electronic ones. If either of the two cases is true, the author's stance of reshuffling the coverage time for different segments does not hold water.
Secondly, the author assumes that the balk of objection received in the concerned timeline was about the coverage time of the local news. However, this seemingly healthy amount may be pretty insignificant when considered in a broader aspect. It might be the case that the company received only 5 objections of which 3 — the greater of the two — were about the coverage time. Statistically speaking, this can be called the larger between the two but in wider analysis, this is an oversimplification of the statistical data. Moreover, it is also likely that the consumer's opinion in the coverage objections was not about the span but about the timing — why they are not broadcasted on other sections of the day. If any of the two possible situations presented can be proven then the assumptions made by the author proved unwarranted and baseless.
To conclude, it is easily discernable from the discussion that there are significant flaws in the author’s assumption backing up his conclusion. However, if the two important questions can be answered and supported by conspicuous evidence then the recommendation by the author can be evaluated effectively.