Please assess my AWA passage. Planning to give gmat ASAP

Argument
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“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 circulation of The Mercury will attract more businesses to buy advertising space in the paper.”


Passage
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The argument states premises without stating the evidences. It makes various assumptions which are not supported by facts. As it concludes that The Mercury should reduce the prices to regain the readers' base, it makes various assumptions which unsubstantiated the argument. While making the conclusion, author should have taken into consideration the below factors to make it more convincing.

First, the author assumes that reduction in circulation of The Mercury is due to The Bugle and states the competitive price of latter as a reason for reduction in circulation of former. Here is a major flow, as reader may take into consideration the price of newspaper as one of the reason while choosing an appropriate newspaper but at the same time he looks for his area of concerns or interests in the newspaper. Language and pro-activeness of a newspaper agency to cover the news across the world and publish the same act as major factor for a reader to choose the right newspaper for him. As argument misses out these considerations, it is majorly flawed.

Secondly, arguments fails to mention the area/region of circulation of the two newspapers while comparing them. At the same time, it also misses out to consider the targeted audience and category of two newspaper i.e., daily/weekly times, economic times, sports newspaper etc. It may be possible that the two newspapers are having different set of targeted audience/readers or they are circulated in different areas. The Mercury may be a regional newspaper while The Bugle may be a global one. In these cases, the two newspapers have completely different scope of areas and targeted audience. As there is no mention of such factors in the argument, again it is not able to convince the reader. Hence, simply reducing the price wont help The Mercury to regain its readers' base. It has to look for above factors before making a conclusion.

Third, argument is assuming to attract more advertisers based on increased circulation. Here again, as mentioned above there may be a possibility that advertisers would look for targeted audience and region of circulation of The Mercury. These may act as key factors for advertisers to opt for appropriate newspaper to advertise. Hence, circulation alone may not help The Mercury to increase its advertisers.

As the argument misses out numerous key considerations while deciding on reduction of price of newspaper, it is not able to convince the reader. It would have been substantiated if it had considered the above mentioned points while making the decision.



THANKS IN ADVANCE
-Rishi