arg235

fingerliUID: 2130195

TOPIC: ARGUMENT235 - The following appeared in a memorandum from the general manager of KNOW radio station.

"Several factors indicate that radio station KNOW should shift its programming from rock-and-roll music to a continuous news format. Consider, for example, the number of older people in our listening area has increased dramatically, while the total number of our listeners has recently declined. Also, music stores in our area report decreased sales of recorded music. Finally, continuous news stations in neighboring cities have been very successful, and a survey taken just before the recent election shows that local citizens are interested in becoming better informed about politics."
WORDS: 381         TIME: 0:30:00          DATE: 2006-8-21
（经修改）
1.        老人不一定不爱听RR，总人数下降有其他原因
2.        碟片销售量下降不足以说明
3.        调查的问题
『类比就不说了』
The memo recommends that radio station KNOW should shift its programming to a continuous news format by the change of local citizens’ interest and the success of neighboring cities’ continuous news. Close scrutiny reveals, however, that the recommendation suffers from several logic flaws.

Firstly, the author unfairly assumes that older people do not like to listen to rock-and-roll music (RR). Yet no evidence is provided to support the assumption. It is entirely possibly that the reason of the older listeners' increase is just that they like the RR of KNOW very much. In addition, the author overlooks other factors attributable to the declination of total listeners. Maybe the RR of KNOW is not good enough and young listeners turn to listen to RR from other stations. If true, the station should continue to program the music and improve the quality of what they program in order to attract its listeners.

Besides, the mere fact that sales of recorded music in music stores in the area decreased proves nothing about interest of local citizens. Other factors responsible to the fact should be taken into account. Perhaps, RR is still sold very well and even better while sales of other music declined which can also led to the decrease of music sales in stores and in fact people is still interested in RR . Or perhaps, people find better way to listen music than buying recorded music: downloading from the Internet, for instance and their interest in music have not changed. If this is true, the author’ recommendation is unfounded strongly at least.

Finally, the author provide no evident to show the reliability and generalization of the survey mentioned in the argument. Even assuming one accepts the survey, the mere fact that local citizens are interested in better informed about politics before election does not necessary indicates that they are still interested in politics now. It  might be the case that people are not interested in politics at all now and even felt sick about it because the cheat in the last election..

To sum up, the recommendation is not well reasoned, to support it, the author should provide more compelling evidence that more and more people are not interested in and want to listen to RR any more interested in politics very much.