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The more viewers a television show attracts, the greater the advertising revenue the show generates. The television network Vidnet's most popular show, Starlight, currently earns the network's highest profits, but next year, because of unavoidable increases in production costs, its profits are projected to fall to below the average for Vidnet shows. Therefore, Vidnet would earn greater profits overall if it replaced Starlight with a show of average popularity and production costs.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?
| Text from Passage | Analysis |
| The more viewers a television show attracts, the greater the advertising revenue the show generates. |
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| The television network Vidnet's most popular show, Starlight, currently earns the network's highest profits |
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| but next year, because of unavoidable increases in production costs, its profits are projected to fall to below the average for Vidnet shows |
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| Therefore, Vidnet would earn greater profits overall if it replaced Starlight with a show of average popularity and production costs. |
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The argument starts with a general principle about TV economics, then applies it to show Starlight's current success. It introduces a future problem (rising costs will hurt Starlight's profits), and concludes that replacing the show would solve this problem.
Vidnet should replace Starlight with an average show to earn greater overall profits.
The argument assumes that replacing one below-average profitable show with an average profitable show will increase total network profits, without considering what other effects losing the most popular show might have on the network's overall revenue.
Weaken - We need to find information that would reduce our belief in the conclusion that replacing Starlight with an average show would increase Vidnet's overall profits
The argument makes specific quantitative claims about profit levels (highest profits vs below average vs average) and assumes a direct replacement scenario between Starlight and a hypothetical average show
To weaken this argument, we need to find scenarios where replacing Starlight would actually hurt Vidnet's overall profits, even though Starlight's individual profits will drop below average. We should look for ways that Starlight adds value beyond just its own profit numbers, or ways that removing it could create bigger problems for the network's total profitability
This tells us that Vidnet's average show profits have been increasing for three years. However, this doesn't weaken the argument about whether replacing Starlight would improve overall profits next year. Whether averages have been rising doesn't change the fact that Starlight will fall below that average, and it doesn't give us any reason to think replacement would be a bad idea. This is irrelevant to the specific replacement decision.
This reveals a crucial spillover effect - shows around very popular shows get way more viewers than normal. This seriously weakens the argument because removing Starlight (the most popular show) would hurt the profits of the shows that air right before and after it. Even if replacing Starlight with an average show gains some profit on that time slot, the network could lose much more from the reduced performance of surrounding shows. The argument completely ignores this domino effect when calculating overall profits.
Knowing that Starlight has the highest production costs actually supports the argument rather than weakening it. If Starlight is the most expensive to produce and its profits are dropping, that makes replacement seem even more sensible. This doesn't give us any reason to doubt that replacement would improve overall profits.
Information about a different show that failed last year doesn't directly impact the decision about Starlight. The fact that another similar show lost money doesn't tell us anything about what would happen if we replaced Starlight with an average show (not another similar expensive show). This is about a different scenario entirely.
This compares Starlight's future profitability to other networks' shows, but that's irrelevant to Vidnet's internal decision. What matters for Vidnet's overall profits is how Starlight compares to other Vidnet shows and potential replacements, not how it compares to shows on completely different networks. This doesn't affect whether replacement would improve Vidnet's total profits.