argument 235 【0906G背水一战三月小组】第一次作业 thanks zjw7hk

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In the memo, the general manager recommends that the radio station KNOW(K) should shift its programming from rock-and-roll music to a continuous news format. He obverses the increasing number of older people in the listening area, the decline of the total number of the listeners, also, the decreased sales of recorded music in local music stores, and the success of the neighboring city. However, all of the evidence can be untenable to support his recommendation.

To begin with, the author assumed the dramatically increasing number of older listeners intending to be the potential audience will be unsatisfied with the rock-and-roll music, which may continue to decrease the total number of listeners. However, there is no evidence that the older people will show less interest in rock-and-roll music. It is entirely possible that those old ones possess strong interests in some classical rock-and-roll music, which inclines to remind them about the past. What’s more, we find no sign of the reason for the decline of the current listeners, there may be other explanations rather than the program . For example, listeners may be annoyed with the excessive advertisement during the program, or they are unsatisfied with the poor effect of the KNOW.

Furthermore, the decline of sales of the recorded music in the stores does not follow that the proposed shift is necessary. The manager implies the declining sales showing the citizens have less interest in rock-and-roll music. Unfortunately, it is actually not the case. Perhaps most of the recorded music in the store are out of date, or their high prices prevent potential customers purchasing them. Indeed, even assume that music in the store are rock-and-roll music, it may be the result of that people has a cheaper access to rock-and-roll music offer by KNOW. And then fewer people will buy recorded music. In brief, the sales in the music has least relevance to the less interest in rock-and-roll music.

Finally, the author cites a seeming convictive survey to show the news format will be more popular than rock-and-roll music among local citizens, and expects that the success in neighboring city will also suitable for KNOW. On the one hand, the reliability of the survey is open to doubt, as it was conducted just before the recent election, a too particular period. There is little evidence that people’s strong interest in politics will remain a long time. On the other, the success of the neighboring city cannot guarantee the similar result of KNOW. First, we need to know whether the success in the neighboring city was attributed to the continuous news. Even it is the case, without considering the potential differences between the two place, a final success is high suspicious. For instance, those cities are the centers of politics that people are more concerned about news, however, people here pursuit a leisure lifestyle, emphasizing more on entertainment, such as rock-and-roll music.

In sum, the argument is based on the so poor evidence that lends scant support to the conclusion. Unless the author can either find the actual reason of the decline of listeners, or confirm confidently that local people, including the increasing number of older ones will be interested in continuous news format, the conclusion may make a sense.