The following memo from the business manager of a television channel.
"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 complaints from the viewers were regarding our station's coverage of weather and local news. In addition, the local businesses that used to advertise on our late-night program have just canceled their advertising contracts with us. Therefore, in order to attract more viewers and avoid losing any further advertising revenues, we should restore time devoted to weather and local news to its former levels."

The argument concludes that the time devoted to weather and local news on the channel should be increased. This conclusion has been reached after making a large number of assumptions which are rife with loopholes.

Firstly, the channel devotes an increased amount of time to national news and lesser to weather and local news. It is stated that an increased time is invested and not said if it sufficient even. Say earlier out of the 3 hours only half an hour was spent on national news. Now this duration has been increased by 100% leading to an hour of national news and viewers demand for 1.5 hours of national news at least, leaving 1.5 hours of local news and weather. Thus maybe decreasing the amount of time for national news will lead to more complains from viewers. Also, the time maybe of a National Emergency or some event of National importance which requires more coverage. Thus more increase time for national news is what viewers want.

The channel wants to find a solution because viewers have been complaining more about the weather and local news. The channel does not consider this that viewers might be complaining because of the poor quality of their coverage and not about the shortening of the duration. The host might have an accent which is hard to comprehend or the content is insufficient or even the content might be irrelevant. These can also be the kind of complains that viewers might be making. Thus they should try and understand the nature of complains from the viewers and act accordingly.

Secondly, it has been stated that local businesses that used to advertise during their late-night news program have just canceled their advertising contracts and the solution to this will also be increment in time devoted to weather and local news. This does not take into account the fact that the local businesses might be shifting to new locations due to factors like drop in the purchasing power of people of the area. They will therefore not need to even advertise on the local channels anymore and are canceling their advertising contracts. Another scenario might be that the channel has too high rates for advertisement which local businesses are finding illogical to pay for. Say, the channel is charging 100 dollars a second for advertisement. The ads are 80 seconds on an average and per day the advertisement appears for say 5 times. So they are paying 4000 dollars per day and 28000 dolars a week on advertisement on this channel and the good that they might be advetisement is a cheap commodity like bread or milk. This will be detrimental for the profits of the business. Also, they might have discovered that the increase in sales from advertisement through pamphlets, events or billboards have a greater impact than advertising on late-night news as it only reaches out to a limited number of people.

The channel should make an unbiased and rigorous survey of viewers and local businessmen as to what kind of problems they are facing and what changes they would find suitable instead of making changes on the basis of assumptions.

Hence, just increasing the time for weather and local news might not lead to the effects that the channel is hoping for and the above steps should be taken.