The following is a memorandum from the business manager of a television station."Over the past year , our late­night news program has devoted increased time to nationalnews and less time to weather and local news. During this time period, most of thecomp

The business manager of a television station makes an argument for restoring the time devoted to weather and local news to earlier level to attract more viewers and avoid loss of advertising revenues. He supports it with the evidence of complaints of viewers and cancellation of contracts by the local businesses during late-night news. However, there is need to evaluate specific evidence before the argument can be considered sound.

Firstly, there is lack of evidence in the argument regarding whether the complaints made by the viewers regarding the coverage of the weather and local news is regarding the insufficient time of coverage or quality of the coverage. It may be that the complaints are regarding the quality. It may mean that the there is need for better aggregation of data regarding them and quality reporting. This indicates that the concern regarding reduced time of coverage may be ill-founded at best , making the argument flawed.

Secondly, there is no evidence regarding actual quantification of the complaints and number of viewers. May be the number of complaints may be too low for example only 2 out of 100 viewers. Furthermore, there is no data which points to either increase or decrease in the viewership during the given period of time. If actual viewership increased from 50 to 100 and complaints have increased from 1 to 2 due to the increased coverage of the national news, then the conclusion of loss of viewership and need to gain additional viewers does not hold.

Thirdly, there is lack of evidence regarding the reason which led local businesses to withdraw the advertising contracts. It is stated in the passage that they have "just" cancelled their contracts while the programme was running for a year. It may be possible that there is a sudden downturn in the local economy which resulted in businesses taking up austerity measures. There is no evidence in argument which preclude other possible reasons for cancellation. This makes the argument claim that the increase in coverage for national news is responsible for it suspect.

In conclusion, there is lack of sufficient evidence in the argument to make it reliable recommendation. In order to vindicate the argument there is need to collect additional evidence regarding the purpose of the complaints, better quantification of data regarding viewers and survey to find reasons for cancellation of contracts.