President of D.C.’s Fox affiliate says Nielsen ratings system is outdated

The vice president and general manager of the District’s Fox affiliate, WTTG, found himself in some hot water discussing the upcoming election and why Nielsen, long the gold standard of television ratings, may in fact be outdated.

“All right, so I put out a post a few days ago that I wasn’t voting. This election has really been troubling, to say the least,” General Manager Patrick Paolini said on “I Still Have a Key Card,” the unscripted, get-to-know-the-staff podcast of WTTG. “I said that I don’t feel either candidate is worthy of the presidency, and I feel that.”

Mr. Paolini went on to clarify that while he had said earlier he would not cast a vote for president, he will in fact go into the voting booth Tuesday — with a name selected for the nation’s next chief executive.

“After talking to some people and getting some good feedback, I might write in someone,” he said. “It will not be one of the two current candidates.”

Mr. Paolini also spoke of his personal affinity for tattoos — he has several — and his thoughts on market competitiveness in the District market.

“[NBC’s] WRC and us, probably we dominate somewhere between 70 percent and 80 percent of the news audience in the marketplace,” Mr. Paolini said on the podcast. “We have been number 1 and they have been number 1. I would say … we are probably considered the number 2 station in the market but very close. But that’s based on Nielsen.”

And of Nielsen, Mr. Paolini did not hold back his thoughts on the ratings-measuring company, whose figures set the standard for advertising rates.

“I think it’s antiquated, it’s old methodology,” he said. “I don’t think they sample enough people in the market. I just don’t think they have evolved to measure local television the way it’s actually viewed and consumed at this point.”

With social media a greater force than every before, especially in the presidential election, Mr. Paolini believes that it is incumbent upon news organizations to engage better with their audience, who have more choices than ever before on where to get their news.

“People don’t have the patience anymore for boring, traditional content, whether it’s a newscast or not,” he said. “What I tried to do in Philadelphia was — and I do it here as well — is be the viewer. I really try to watch from a viewer perspective.”