multi-platform

ESPN has just wrapped up a month-long audience measurement initiative as a "proof-of-concept" for a multi-platform measurement solution of audio/video/display media consumption from comScore and Arbitron.

The measurement initiative, Project Blueprint, polled data from radio, television, PCs, smartphones, and tablets. Launched last September (we reported on it here), the study ran in February.

ESPN has released some key findings now. Read more in TVNewsCheck here.

Editor's Note: RAIN will return on Tuesday, January 17, 2012.

Clear Channel Radio today announced its immediate name change to Clear Channel Media and Entertainment, a move it says "better reflect(s) the evolution of its business... (and) clearly signals its successful expansion into new areas."

"Clear Channel Media and Entertainment represents our evolution as we prove our relationship with our listeners is so much more than just our transmitters and towers," Clear Channel Media and Entertainment CEO John Hogan said in the press release announcing the change. "We will continue to serve our increasingly diverse audiences and local communities... wherever they expect it, while supporting advertisers, strategic partners, music labels and artists with creative, multi-platform marketing opportunities..."

The new moniker covers Clear Channel's 850+ broadcast outlets, but also online (via iHeartRadio and on its stations’ hundreds of websites), HD digital radio, satellite, mobile (smartphones, tablet devices, and in-vehicle entertainment and navigation systems), and live events.

RAIN Analysis: This move is logical, especially if you buy into the notion that radio's future will be as itself a single strategy executed by multi-platform media companies (see TargetSpot's Andy Lipset's guest essay today, or our coverage of Jerry Del Colliano's blog yesterday, here). What's harder to comprehend is how, on one hand, radio's biggest player can so deeply accept its future as a multi-platform venture as to drop the word "Radio" from its name; yet on the other hand, there are those in the broadcast industry maintaining that Pandora and other pureplay webcasters belong in a completely separate sandbox. -- PM