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 time period, most of the comp

There are two key pieces of evidence that would greatly assist in the evaluation of the argument that increasing the time devoted to local news and weather will attract more viewers and prevent further loss of advertising revenues. The first piece of evidence needed is information as to why the local businesses pulled their ads, with the second being further clarity with regard to the precise nature of the complaints that the station has recieved. The evidence provided on these two topics will allow for a much more reasonable evaluation of the manager's claim.

First, it will be important to discover the reasons that the local businesses had for pulling their ads. The business owners may have pulled their ads because their businesses weren't doing well and they were unable to budget for the advertising time, or they may have simply decided that television advertising was not the best way to reach their target audiences any longer for a reason unrelated to the content of this program. If this is the case, then changing the time allowed for local news and weather will not inspire these businesses to return to the program. The manager's plan may have some merit if the businesses are found to have left due to the recent change in program structure.

Secondly, it is stated that the majority of recent complaints concern the station's coverage of local news and weather, but it is vital to know what the complaints that viewers have registered are saying and whether it is abnormal for most complaints to center on these topics. If viewers are concerned with the quality of news or the accuracy of the weather reports rather than the quantity of air time devoted to them, then increasing the time spent on this coverage will be meaningless. Likewise, if these areas have consistently received complaints from viewers in the same high percentages then it is not logical to use that statistic to speculate as to the cause of the recent decrease in viewership.

In order for the manager's recommendation to be evaluated positively, it will need to be shown that the businesses pulled their ads in response to the recent programming debacle and that the complaints from viewers are both related to the reduction in air time on these topics and unusually high in number. If this cannot be shown, then the manager's advice may be unsound. It will only be if the additional evidence shows this to be the case that the manager's plan will be a justifiable recommendation.