GMAT Essays (AWA)

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."

The argument claims that The Bugle, a competing lower priced weekly newspaper that was started five years ago was the cause for the decline in the number of readers of The Mercury, another weekly newspaper.Hence, it suggests that lowering the price of The Mercury to less than that of The Bugle would attract more readers and raise the number to the former level.Hence, the increased circulation would lead to attracting more businesses buying advertising space in the paper. Stated in this way, the argument fails to convey several key factors on the basis of which it could be evaluated. The conclusion relies on assumptions, for which there is no clear evidence.Therefore, the argument is rather weak and unconvincing and has several flaws.

First, the argument readily assumes that the competition in the pricing of the newspapers was responsible for the decline in The Mercury's circulation. This statement is a stretch and not substantiated in anyway. It is highly possible that the reason for the decline in the number of readers is that the quality of the articles in the nespaper has gone down within the last five years, thus not being able to attract more number of readers. In addition, the newspaper may have not been covering the news that appeals to the general audience. There are several examples of highly priced newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal, which,inspite of the high subscription prices, compete very well in the market. Thus the argument fails to take into account other relevant factors such as the quality of articles and the extent of coverage of news and merely relies on a single unsubstatiated evidence of another newspaper's low price to be responsible for the decrease in circulation of The Mercury.

Second, the argument claims that reducing the price of The Mercury to less that that of The Bugle would be the best way to increase circulation.This is again a very weak and unsupported claim as the argument does not take into account for cases that would be unaffected by the decrease in the price. What if the former readers of the newspaper had resorted to online newspapers, given the current technology advances that the general public is aware of. Moreover, there are thouands of newspapers online that are free and cover a plethora of news from all around the world. Additionlly, the argument also assumes that lowering prices might attract more readers, which might not be the case if the audience takes the reduction
in prices prices to be the newspaper company's helplessness and a confirmation of an opinion that there is indeed something wrong with that newspaper company.
This might further hamper the circulation.

Finally, the arugment concludes that the increased circulation of The MErcury will result in increased sales in advertising space. From this statement again, it is not at all clear how the argument draws such a conclusion. Although, increase in supply generally increases demand, this may not always happen as it depends on the state of the economy at that time. The argument fails to provide additional evidence about the current state of the economy. If the economy is not doing well, increased in circulation(supply) may not always lead to an increase in demand.Without more evidence, one is left with more of a wishful thinking that substantive evidence. Hence the conclusion has no solid grounds to stand on.

In summary, the argument is flawed and therefore unconvincing. It could be considerably strengthened if the author clearly mentioned all the relevant facts.In order to assess the merit of a certain situation it is necessary to have a full knowledge of all contributing factors.