Beat The GMAT a GMAT & MBA community

The following appeared in a memorandum issued by a large city's council on the arts:

"In a recent citywide poll, 15 percent more residents said that they watch television programs about the visual arts than was the case in a poll conducted five years ago. During these past five years, the number of people visiting our city's art museums has increased by a similar percentage. Since the corporate funding that supports public television, where most of the visual arts programs appear, is now being threatened with severe cuts, we can expect that attendance at our city's art museums will also start to decrease. Thus some of the city's funds for supporting the arts should be reallocated to public television."

Discuss how well reasoned . . . etc.
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The author states if the funding that supports public television is cut, there could be a drop in attendance at city's art museums. This conclusion is based on a comparative result of two citywide polls done within a span of 5 years. The authors statement is seriously flawed as discussed as follows.

Firstly the author assumes that the same group of people participated in the two polls. However there is no substantial information to state that the population of people who took part in the poll are the same. There could have been a surge of families who may have moved to the city within these five years who had nothing to do with the first poll.

Secondly, the author assumes that the people who watched visual arts programs are the same as those who attend art galleries. However once again there is no information to substantiate the same. There is a possibility that those who visit art museums may not have televisions at home.

This leads us to the final flaw that there will be a decrease in people attending art museums if corporate funding supporting public television decreases. There is no proof of the link between the two. People who visit art museums could include artists, art fanatics and children on schools trips, all of these groups not necessarily motivated to do so because of the television programs on art.

In summary the author's conclusion is based on general information which could be strengthened if the author had considered at least the population of the study and the relation between television watchers and museum goers.