Hi All, Please evaluate this essay
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24 Feb 2017, 07:29
Please evaluate this,as I'm already approaching towards my exam, it would be great help from you all-
“Since a competing lower-priced newspaper, The Bugle, was started five years ago, The Mercury’s circulation has declined by 10,000 readers. The best way to get more people to read The Mercury is to reduce its price below that of The Bugle, at least until circulation increases to former levels. The increased circulationn of The Mercury will attract more businesses to buy advertising space in the paper.”
The argument claims that it is recommended to reduce the price of Mercury newspaper below the price of a competing newspaper, The Bugle. This recommendation respond to a severe decline in circulation of Mercury newspaper during the 5-year period following the introduction of The Bugle. Stated in this way the publisher assumes that lowering the price of The Mercury will increase its readership thereby increasing profits because a wider readership attracts more advertisers and instead fails to mention several key factors, on the basis of which it could be evaluated. The conclusion of the argument relies on the assumptions for which there is no clear evidence. Hence, the argument is unconvincing and has several flaws.
Firstly the argument readily assumes that lowering the subscription price of will increase circulation of newspaper and would make the paper more attractive to the potential advertisers. This statement is a stretch its not obvious that lowering subscription price is the most effective way to gain the new readers. For example, The Mercury could be the established local newspaper, it is unlikely that such a mass exodus of its readers would be explained by subscription price alone. Clearly, with this differentiation of being locally established paper is less of attraction than The Bugle. The argument could have been much clearer if it explicitly stated that both the papers contain local as well as international news and are not differentiated on these grounds than it would be evaluated more properly.
Second, the argument claims that due to its unpopularity or high price, it is rarely attracted by businessmen for advertisements. This is again a very weak and unsupported claim as the argument does not demonstrate any correlation between unpopularity and lack of advertisements in The Mercury. To illustrate, there are many other factors that might account for a decline in The Mercury’s unpopularity. For instance, readers might be displeased with the extent and accuracy of its news reporting, or the balance of local to other news coverage. Moreover, it is possible The Mercury has recently changed editors, giving the paper a locally unpopular political perspective. Or perhaps readers are unhappy with the paper’s format, the timeliness of its feature articles, its comics or advice columns, the extent and accuracy of its local event calendar, or its rate of errors. If the argument had provided evidence for defined above reasons then the argument would have been a lot more convincing.
Finally based upon above scenarios, how can publisher be so sure that increasing circulation will attract more businessmen for advertisement? Will reducing the subscription price affect the popularity? Without convincing answer to these questions, one is left with the impression that the claim is more of a wishful thinking rather than the substantive evidence.
In conclusion, the argument is flawed for the above mentioned reasons and is therefore unconvincing. It could be considerably strengthen if the author clearly mentions all the relevant facts that there is a strong connection between the price of the paper and its popularity. In order to assess the merits of a certain situation, it is essential to have full knowledge of all contributing factors. In this particular case author must identify and explore relevant factors beyond cost before concluding that lowering subscription prices will increase circulation and, thereby, increasing advertising revenue. Without this information, the argument remains unsubstantiated and open for debate.