What In The World Are Local TV Stations Thinking?

[Commentary] A look at Nielsen's decision to remove live-only ratings from the local television marketplace beginning January 1, 2010. Could this be the worst thing ever at the worst time ever for local TV? Why in the world would local TV stations push so hard to remove a metric that their clients believe represents a higher measure of accountability on the performance of their medium? And why would they seek to do it a time when other media - especially online, mobile, and soon, local cable TV systems - will be able to prove themselves even better via superior return path data? It just doesn't make any sense. At least not to me. So if you've got some thoughts on this one, please steer me in the right direction, and post them here. I'm trying to be open-minded about this one, but I think the local broadcast TV community is dead wrong on this one. I think Nielsen is wrong too, and is playing way too heavy a role in exercising its judgment on this call. And I think the real loser is going to be local broadcast TV advertising share. If advertisers and agencies lose more confidence in the medium, they're simply going to shift budgets to other, more accountable media.