Over the past year, our late-night news program has devoted increasingly more time to covering national news and less time to covering weather and local news. During the same time period, most of the complaints we received from viewers were concerned with

The underlying assumption made in this argument is that there have been absolutely no other changes in the running of the news station in question. Which is why, firstly, it is imperative that we check to see whether there have been any other major changes at the television station.

A major cause of loss of revenue could also be another upcoming TV station, or the loss of an extremely popular reporter. Should any of the above turn out to be true, it would considerably weaken the manager's hypothesis that simply restoring the air time given to local news and weather would solve their problems, as the loss in viewership and revenue is independent of the change in air time.

It is important to take into account that since there have been complaints about the lack of coverage of weather and local news, an attempt to restore the previous balance would bring back some lost viewers. However, whether or not this ploy would actually attract new viewers, is a different story altogether. In order to achieve more viewership than ever before, it would be necessary for the station to run a survey about the likes and dislikes of the populace, issues which interest them most, and so on.

Another issue to be noted is the fact that the late night news show, by giving 'national news' of the day gone by, is rather late in doing so, as chances are most people are already aware of the important happenings of the day. On the other hand, local news wouldn't receive as much coverage, and weather forecasts would help the public make plans for the next days, which is why these would attract more viewers.