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 received from viewers were concerned with our station's coverage of weather and local news. In addition, local businesses that used to advertise during our late-night news program have canceled their advertising contracts with us. Therefore, in order to attract more viewers to our news programs and to avoid losing any further advertising revenues, we should expand our coverage of weather and local news on all our news programs."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The argument makes number of unwarranted assumptions regarding the time devoted to weather and local news to its former level. Taken as whole, these unstated assumptions render the argument highly suspect.If these unstated assumptions do not hold true, then the argument totally falls apart.
The argument states that most of the complaints received from viewers were concerned with our station's coverage of weather and local news. But, the complaints must have come a fraction of viewers, so it would be illogical to consider their suggestions and make changes in the daily news reports.
Takin a step deep into analyzing the given argument, the memorandum states that local business that used to advertise during our late night programs have cancelled their advertising contracts with us due to the less viewers of the television station. This reasoning must be fallacious and misleading. It could happen that other stations have offered them a better deal of advertising and this must be reason they must have cancelled the contract.
Another unstated assumptions the arguments makes is to lure more number of viewers to the late night news program and to avoid losing any further advertising revenues, they should restore the time devoted to weather and local news to its former level. There are many other ways to attract more number of viewers to the late night news program. Like, they can improve the quality of news reports which they serve to the audience and earn a high paid contract of advertisement of national businesses. An up-to-date information will keep the viewer's interest alive. This way television station can earn more advertising contracts with a better deal.
Unless the argument can show that there is clear reason that advertising contracts has been cancelled due to the reduction in the number of viewers, then Business manager of the television station is making a wrong decision to restore the time devoted to weather and local news to its former level. Unless the assumptions are addressed the argument falls apart, and the Business manager could very well make a major mistake to restore the time devoted to weather and local news to its former level.
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Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 14 15
No. of Words: 358 350
No. of Characters: 1802 1500
No. of Different Words: 164 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.35 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.034 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.541 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 127 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 104 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 67 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 40 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.571 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.228 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.357 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.39 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.642 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.166 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5