A new commercial radio station in Greenfield plans to play songs that

Question

A new commercial radio station in Greenfield plans to play songs that were popular hits fifteen to twenty-five years ago. It hopes in this way to attract an audience made up mainly of people between thirty-five and forty-five years old and thereby to have a strong market appeal to advertisers.

Each of the following, if true, strengthens the prospects that the radio station's plan will succeed EXCEPT:

A. People tend to remain very fond of the music that they heard when they were in their teens and early twenties.

B. In a number of cities demographically similar to Greenfield, radio stations that play recordings of popular music from fifteen to twenty-five years ago have succeeded commercially.

C. People in the thirty-five- to forty-five-year-old age group are more likely to listen to the radio for news than for music.

D. The thirty-five- to forty-five-year-old age group is one in which people tend to have comparatively high levels of income and are involved in making household purchases.

E. Among the few radio stations in the Greenfield area, there is none that plays music from this particular period for more than a few hours per week

No problem with the OA but whats the problem with D. IMO it is not having any effect.

rajeevrks27 · Answer

Though not a very direct relation however IMO D does strengths to some extent if not 100%.
The people in that age group have higher level of income and thus money is no bar when it comes to purchases
Moreover, when it says people in this age group are involved in purchase of house hold items, it strengths the conclusion " to have a strong market appeal to advertisers".
Do i need to dwell more or this much is sufficient?

pritish2301 · Answer

Hi Marcab,

D. The thirty-five- to forty-five-year-old age group is one in which people tend to have comparatively high levels of income and are involved in making household purchases.
Option D can be ruled out because the aim of playing the old songs is to increase viewership and thereby attract advertisers. Advertisers will benefit only if the target audience have high incomes to buy the products and are decision makers involved in purchasing of products in the family.

Hence, if this viewership is increased. Advertisers would want to influence them (audience). SO the plan is bound to succeed.

Regards,
Pritish

KarishmaB · Answer

Let's analyze the given argument:

A new station plans to play songs that were popular 15-25 years ago. 
It hopes to attract people between 35-45 years 
It hopes to have a strong market appeal to advertisers.

There are a number of assumptions (the term is used loosely here) the author of the argument is working on... First of all, he is assuming that people would like to hear the hits of their youth. They will be attracted to this channel which plays the hits of their time. It is also assuming that others do not cater sufficiently to this segment and hence this new channel will be able to attract people. Another assumption is that if they are able to attract 35-45 yr olds, advertisers will be pleased i.e. the 35-45 yr olds are the decision makers of many products advertised on the radio. 
If our option provides any one of these premises given above, it will strengthen our argument. 
(A), (B), (D) and (E) strengthen the argument.

(B) strengthens by saying that the same plan has been tried at other similar places and has succeeded. This strengthens our argument that it might succeed here as well. Note that we only need to strengthen it, not prove it beyond doubt. Sure, if it has succeeded at other places, it MAY not succeed here but it does strengthen our belief in the plan.

(E) strengthens it by saying that other channels do not cater to this segment much. Hence the possibility of this channel attracting people is higher. It is providing a service to people which they would like and others are not providing. Hence the chances of success increase. That's all we want to do - INCREASE the chances of success.

(C) does not strengthen it and hence is the answer.

sanjeebpanda · Answer

Hi Mam,
How D supports?Can you please explain.

KarishmaB · Answer

An argument gives us the following:

A new station plans to play songs that were popular 15-25 years ago. 
It hopes to attract people between 35-45 years 
It hopes to have a strong market appeal to advertisers.

What will make this argument stronger? The argument is assuming that if the station is able to attract people between 35-45 years, it will have a strong appeal to advertisers. Why is that so? This will be so if the 35-45 years old people actually are decision makers the products advertised i.e. they decide whether they/their family will buy the products. Hence (D) will make this argument stronger.

CrackverbalGMAT · Answer

Hello Marcab, 
The conclusion is that this plan (to target the thirty-five and forty five year olds) will be a success. 
One of the assumptions made here is that advertising in this segment will result in profits for the advertisers. 
Or in other words this demographic has the purchasing power to buy the things advertised. 
Option D says exactly this and helps bolster the argument.

If you're still skeptical, try negating Option D. 
The thirty-five- to forty-five-year-old age group is one in which people tend to have comparatively lower levels of
income and are not involved in making household purchases.

This suggests that they are a bad target audience for advertisers and the radio stations will probably not get any revenue through advertising- this breaks the argument.

We therefore know that option D is relevant and that it also strengthens that argument as whole.

Hope that helps, 
Ajeeth Peo 
Verbal Trainer - CrackVerbal

DesiGmat · Answer

Here we go:

Purpose of playing the songs that were popular hits fifteen to twenty-five years ago ---

1 - to attract an audience made up mainly of people between thirty-five and fortyfive years old
2 - to have a strong market appeal to advertisers

So the fight is between option C and option D

Let's consider option D first.

--- The thirty-five- to forty-five-year-old age group is one in which people tend to have comparatively high levels of income and are involved in making household purchases.---

"""involved in making household purchases""" ---> it serves purpose 2.

Option C left.

I will go with option C.

KarishmaB · Answer

The thing to note in this question is the question stem. It is not your usual question stem. 
"Each of the following, if true, strengthens the prospects that the radio station's plan will succeed EXCEPT"
You need to find the option which does not strengthen the argument. It means the option may weaken the argument or may have absolutely no effect on the argument.

Argument: 
A station plans to play songs that were popular hits fifteen to twenty-five years ago. 
It hopes in this way to attract an audience made up mainly of people between thirty-five and forty-five years old 
It hopes to have a strong market appeal to advertisers.

The plan is to play 15 yr old music and attract 35 yr olds  to make the station attractive to advertisers. 
There are a lot of unsaid things here that could make the argument stronger such as people have special liking for songs they used to hear as teens so hit songs of 20 yrs ago will ring with 35 yr olds and hence the station will be attractive for 35 yr olds. Also, 35-45 yr old consumers are attractive to advertisers because of their purchasing power and hence the station will have strong market appeal to advertisers. These are options (A) and (D) and they do strengthen the argument. (B) also is re-assuring to the plan. (E) increases the probability of success of this station.

C. People in the thirty-five- to forty-five-year-old age group are more likely to listen to the radio for news than for music.
This, at best, has no effect on the plan. It doesn't matter that this age group focuses more on news as long as it is focusing enough on music too. But if anything, it weakens the plan a bit since it suggests that 35-45 yr age group is not that interested in music. Hence, in any case, it does not strengthen the plan.

Therefore, (C) is the correct answer.

alice7 · Answer

I choose D, because I thought C would kind of strengthen. As 35-45 only hear news because there is no music played of their type. So when radio station would start playing then they will start listening. I kind of didn't like D either but went with D.

KarishmaB · Answer

Actually, option (C) tells you that 35-45 yr olds prefer to listen to radio for news, not music - it is a choice they make. Whether their choice will change when the new music channel will arrive, we don't know. Hence, (C) does not strengthen the argument.

LadyJedi · Answer

A new commercial radio station in Greenfield plans to play songs that were popular hits fifteen to twenty-five years ago. It hopes in this way to attract an audience made up mainly of people between thirty-five and forty-five years old and thereby to have a strong market appeal to advertisers.

Plan  : To play songs that were popular hits fifteen to twenty-five years ago
 Goal  : To attract an audience aged between thirty-five and forty-five years old

Planning stage 1: 
 1. Mentioned audience used to listen to the popular hits 15-20 years back.
2. Radio station jockeys are aware of which songs were termed popular 15-20 years back.
3. Mentioned audience can listen to RS .

Execution stage 1:
 1. There will be no side effects on the other audience. RS will not lose existing audience which makes strong appeal to advertisers.

Missing Link 1:
 1. People in 35-55 group have not reached their saturation and are still interested in listening to the old popular songs.

Plan  : To attract an audience aged between thirty-five and forty-five years old 
 Goal  : To have strong market appeal to advertisers

Planning stage 2: 
 1. People in 35-55 group have not reached their saturation and are still interested in listening to the old popular songs.

Execution stage 2:
 1. RS is aware of the advertisers who are interested in the mentioned age group.
2. Advertisers will be interested to collaborate with RS to target the mentioned group.
3. The group owns money to spend

Missing Link 2:
 1. To have audience aged between thirty-five and forty-five years old is enough to have strong market appeal to advertisers.

Each of the following, if true, strengthens the prospects that the radio station's plan will succeed EXCEPT:
We need to find anything but strengthener.
 Strengthener in this case can be :
S1. The above mentioned assumptions .
S2. Any evidence stating that something like this has succeeded somewhere else.
 
A. People tend to remain very fond of the music that they heard when they were in their teens and early twenties.
 Goes with S1 - Planning stage 2: 
 
B. In a number of cities demographically similar to Greenfield, radio stations that play recordings of popular music from fifteen to twenty-five years ago have succeeded commercially.
 Goes with S2
 
C. People in the thirty-five- to forty-five-year-old age group are more likely to listen to the radio for news than for music.
 If this is the case, the mentioned audience is less likely to listen to the music. This option doesn't tell us whether the audience will be interested if the RS plays the old hits.

D. The thirty-five- to forty-five-year-old age group is one in which people tend to have comparatively high levels of income and are involved in making household purchases.
 Goes with Execution stage 2-(3):
 
E. Among the few radio stations in the Greenfield area, there is none that plays music from this particular period for more than a few hours per week
The plan is unique and will see less competition . 
 Goes with Execution stage 2-(2):

Aboyhasnoname · Answer

Hello can you help me with this......

Plan- to play songs that were popular 15-25 years ago for age group that is 35-45...... 
Why? - So that it can have a strong market appeal to advertisers...
So the Aim is to have the audience in 35-45 year age group...

C says, people are more likely to listen to news than music in that age group....
The purpose is to have that audience, that is being satisfied by this? The Aim is being fulfilled...

D says the age group has high level of income and make house hold purchases...
So how does this have an impact on conclusion. That it will have high income peeps...advertisers looking for high income people is an outside assumption...we are assuming that advertisers will be targeting high income groups...their product could be for low income group as well...?

I chose D....please help me identify the gap in my reasoning.....

siddhantvarma · Answer

GMATNinja  Can you please help with this question, especially understanding the difference between (C) and (D) and why (D) strengthens the argument? Is "strong market appeal" is correlated with people making purchases? It wasn't very clear to me.

GMATNinja · Answer

If, for example, an ad campaign targets students with very little disposable income, then the advertiser shouldn't expect much money to be spent on the goods/services advertised in the campaign -- the students likely cannot spare the money to make such purchases. So the return on the investment in advertising is likely to be low.

However, if an ad campaign instead targets people who have high levels of income and are involved in making household purchases, then there's a higher chance that the advertising investment will result in actual purchases. This is a reason to expect a higher return on advertising investment, particularly compared to the example above with students.

If choice (D) is true, then the advertisers have a good reason to invest in advertisements targeting the thirty-five- to forty-five-year-old age group, so they have a good reason to buy ad space on the new radio station. So (D) is evidence that the station's plan will succeed.

Choice (C), on the other hand, suggests that the target audience won't care that much about listening to popular hits from 15-25 years ago (because the target audience is more interested in news than music). This is a reason to believe that the radio station's plan will NOT succeed in attracting the target audience, so (C) is a weakener, not a strengthener.

A new commercial radio station in Greenfield plans to play songs that

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards

GMAT Critical Reasoning (CR) Questions

A new commercial radio station in Greenfield plans to play songs that

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards