The following is a memorandum from the business manager of a television station. “Over the past year, our late-night news program…

In the memorandum, the bussiness manager mentioned a change of the news program during the past year: more time has been devoted to the national news, with less time for the weather and local news. The manager also mention the two problems faced by the television station: the complaints from viewers regarding the coverage of weather and local news, and the loss of advertising from local businesses. They then linked the two problems directly to the change and suggested that the station should restore the change. However, the clear evidence is needed for the suggestion to be valid, which apparently is not provided in the memorandum.

First of all, the manager mentioned that most complaints from the viewers were about their coverage of the reduced weather and local news. Nevertheless, they did not mention the actual change in the number of complaints during the last year; if the number of the complaints actually reduced, it is possible that the there were many viewers that had complained about the lack fo national news during the late-night program were satisfied with the recent change and have stopped complained. The actual number of complaints of different issues during the last year and the year before it should be provided so as to effectively analyze the change in all the complaints.

Also, there is nothing mentioned about the real reasons of the local businesses to decide to stop advertising through the television station. Maybe they just ran out of money for advertising, or maybe they found out that advertising through radio or Internet would be much more efficient, without any concerns about the recent change about the percentage of national news and local news furing the late-night news program. It’s also possible that they are unsatisfied with some specific way the station cooperate with them, and they have decided to switch to a different TV station. There can be numerous possible reasons for the decision of cancellation of the advertising contracts! It is crucial for the television station to know the actual reason for the stop of contracts, or the real problem behind the cooperation with the local bussinesses will never be identified and correctly addressed.

Even if the reasons behind the complaints and the contract cancellation is indeed the reduction of weather and local news, there may still be some other ways to stop the complaints and to restore the advertising contracts instead of simply restore the time distribution change in the program. For example, the TV station can do a local survey to understand exactly how much time the viewers hope to watch national news and local news respectively, or what other kinds of news that they hope to watch instead, such as the trending videos of puppies on Reddit, so that they can rearrange the time section in the news programs on a sound basis; they can encourage local people to help support the business of the TV station by its own advertising. They should understand whether these measures are

Only with the evidence mentioned above provided can the television station decide whether they should remain or restore the change, and the exact wya how they should address the problems mentions by the manager.