please grade my awa

DisciplinedPrep saukrit Businessconquerer

PROMPT

The following appeared in an announcement issued by the publisher of The Mercury, a weekly newspaper:
“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.”
Discuss how well reasoned . . . etc.

The argument claims that the best way for “The Mercury” to gain more readers is to reduce price below that of “The Bugle”, resulting in more circulation and further culminating into more advertising business. Stated this way, the argument manipulates facts and presents a distorted view of the situation. It fails to state many important facts necessary to evaluate the argument.

First, it assumes that the reason for the reader’s switch from “The Mercury” to “The Bugle” was the price difference and factors such as the quality of content and printing paper was the same at both “The Mercury” and “The Bugle”. This statement is a stretch because the author gives no reason to believe that price is the only motivating factor in such a movement from one newspaper to the other. For example, It maybe a case that the more prominent journalists with considerable followers had moved to “The Bugle” and therefore, “The mercury” was struggling to maintain its quality of editorials. Clearly, the author has resorted to leap of faith and poor reasoning to justify his claim. The argument could have been more convincing if it stated something which signified a causal relationship between the price reduction and switching of the readers.

Secondly, the argument claims that readers will not churn to “The Bugle” again after the relevant readership targets are met and they will continue their subscription with “The Mercury”. This again is a poorly reasoned argument as it is highly probable that actions of “The Mercury” are likely to invoke a price war in the industry. For example, After “The mercury” reduces its price to below “The Bugle” offer price, “The Bugle” may further reduce its price so as to avoid losing customers. In response, “The mercury” may have to further undercut its prices so as to meet target circulation levels. Undoubtedly, such a situation could be detrimental to both the players. The argument should have mentioned something around the likelihood of industry wide price war for it to be deemed reasonable.

Finally, the argument fails to answer questions such as whether there are only two players in the industry. It might be the case that despite “The Bugle” undercutting prices, “The Mercury” readers have not switched to “The Bugle” but rather to a third competitor and Whether the drop in circulation revenue due to lower prices of “The Mercury” will be adequately compensated by the increased advertising revenue. Without convincing answers to these questions, one is left with an impression that the claim is more of a wishful thinking rather than a substantive evidence.

In conclusion, the claim is flawed and therefore unconvincing. It could have been fairly strengthened if it mentioned relevant facts such as studies from industry analysts stating that the reason for drop in readership was indeed price and the readers will not switch back to “The Bugle” after prices for “The mercury” are dropped. In order to assess the merits of a situation, it is important that all relevant facts to the argument are presented. Without this, It could be argued that the claim remains unsubstantiated and open to debate.