The following appeared in a letter from a homeowner to a friend.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 received f

The writer of the argument concludes that they should increase the time for weather and local news in a way that the viewers of the program and revenues jump back to first state; however this conclusion cannot be accepted as it is in that it rests on a number of premises all of which can be challenged in one way or another.

The first problem with the argument is that the writer assumes that most of the complaints has happened because of the diminishing time on coverage of weather and local news. However, there is no evidence to prove that the complaints actually happened because of lack of coverage of weather and local news. For example, maybe the complaints happened because these part of the program not working properly.

Another problems with the argument is that the writer assumes that advertising contracts canceled because of the devoting most of the time to national news instead of devoting to weather and local news. However, there is no evidence to definitely prove that this is the case. Maybe the companies which advertise in the middle of late-night news, have changed their policies in advertising and try to advertise their products in another medias and this is not related to the devoting time to national news of the program.

A third problems with the argument is that the writer assumes if the program increases the time devoting to weather and local news, the revenues and propagandas will back to the first square. However, in most cases this is not true. As I mentioned before maybe the companies changed their advertising policies. Not because of time devoting to the national news. As a result, if the time devoted to weather and local news increase, the revenues wouldn’t change.

In the final analysis, the writer's conclusion cannot be taken to be correct because, as it was shown in the body paragraphs above, it depends on a number of assumptions each of which is questionable. The conclusion can only be accepted if the weaknesses already referred to all removed.