Logical Reasoning

PT113 · S3 · Q5 Television executives recently

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Television executives recently announced that advertising time on television will cost 10 to 15 percent more next fall than it cost last fall.

Conclusion (so)

Advertising time will be no harder to sell next fall than it was last fall.

Evidence

Advertisers will continue to profit from television advertising, in spite of the 10-15% increase in cost.

Evaluate

On Strengthen questions, we often start by thinking of possible objections so that we can think about the vulnerabilities of the argument.

Given that ... advertisers will still profit from TV advertising, How could one argue that ... advertising time will be harder to sell next fall (when it costs 10-15% more)?

The fact that a business still profits from X doesn't mean that X is just as attractive a prospect as it was before. After all, say that I used to make $300 of profit a day making fruit smoothies for people, but then the cost of my supplies goes up and I can only make $200 of profit a day. Yes, I'm still profiting, but the smoothie business might not seem so appealing anymore. I might be tempted to try a different business venture.

Similarly, advertisers might see that their profits from TV advertising have shrunk now that it's more expensive, and thus decide to spend their ad dollars elsewhere. Maybe they think,

Goal

Look for an answer that makes alternative options for advertising sound less appealing (thus making TV advertising still an attractive option). Or look for an answer making TV advertising sound more attractive to advertisers than it was before (like, ).

5.

Which one of the following, if true, would most support the television executives' argument?

  1. Most costs of production and

    Weakens, if anything

    This is telling us that in addition to the fact that ad time will be more expensive, the production costs of the actual products have also gone up. If a company's costs to make its product have gone up 3 to 7%, then their profit margin has already shrunk. Now if they also have to pay 10-15% more for ads, they might be down to a crazy-small profit margin. To put it another way, the ads are more expensive than before. If you had extra money in your bank account, you probably wouldn't mind that you have to pay 10-15% more than before. But if you have less money in your business's bank account (because you have to pay higher costs to produce and distribute your product), then you'll be more turned off by the higher price of TV advertising time.

    9% picked this

  2. The system for rating the

    Unclear Impact

    The fact that the system for rating audience size will change tells us nothing. Will it change for the better? Change for the worse? Will it change in a way that makes buying TV advertising time more attractive / less attractive? We have no idea.

    1% picked this

  3. Next fall advertising time on

    Weakens, if anything

    This doesn't sound like the positive-sounding change we'd like to hear about. It sounds more like a negative. You're not able to do something you used to be able to do. In particular, if your business can't afford the higher prices for commercial time, maybe you'd consider switching from a 30 second ad to a 20 second ad, which you can still afford. But if the TV stations discontinue 20 second ads, then you don't really have an option to buy an ad anymore. Thus, this answer sounds like a change that would potentially make it harder for some businesses to buy advertising time, and thus a reason why it might be harder to sell advertising time.

    6% picked this

  4. The amount of television advertising

    Irrelevant Distinction

    We don't care whether a commercial is being bought by a provider of a service or a provider of a product. For either type of business, the ad time will cost 10-15% more. For either type of business, buying an advertisement will continue to be profitable. So this doesn't move the needle in either direction.

    11% picked this

  5. Correct

    A recent survey has shown

    Why this is right

    This provides an incentive to advertise on TV (an increasingly large audience to see your ads), so it strengthens the idea that it will be at least as easy to sell advertising time next fall. Businesses can think, "Well, ad time now costs 10-15% more than before. But the audience increases by 2% every two months, so from last fall to next fall, the audience size will have gone up about 12%. I guess it's worth paying 10-15% more for ad time, given that it's reaching an audience that's 12% bigger than before."

    Skill tested: Strengthen · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    73% picked this

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