SOLICITATION NOTICE
B -- AUDIENCE SURVEY IN IRAQ
- Notice Date
- 12/18/2003
- Notice Type
- Solicitation Notice
- Contracting Office
- Broadcasting Board of Governors, Associate Director for Management, Office of Contracts (M/CON), 330 C Street, SW, Room 2500, Washington, DC, 20237
- ZIP Code
- 20237
- Solicitation Number
- CON-04-0006
- Response Due
- 1/2/2004
- Archive Date
- 1/17/2004
- Point of Contact
- Lesley Isaac, Contracting Officer, Phone 202-619-1623, Fax 202-205-1921,
- E-Mail Address
-
lisaac@ibb.gov
- Description
- The Broadcasting Board of Governors/International Broadcasting Bureau (BBG/IBB), Office of Contracts, Simplified Acquisition Branch (M/CON/SA) has a requirement, subject to the availability of funds, for a contractor to obtain quantitative data on the size, composition and media habits of radio and television in Iraq using the Test Program for Certain Commercial Items specified in Subpart 13.500 of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR). Pursuant to FAR Subpart 12.603, the following constitute both the synopsis and the solicitation: (i) This is a combined synopsis/solicitation for commercial items prepared in accordance with the format in Subpart 12.6, as supplement with additional information included in this notice. This announcement constitutes the only solicitation; written proposals are herein being requested, and a separate solicitation will not be issued. (ii) The solicitation number for this procurement is CON-04-0006 and this solicitation is issued as a Request for Quotation (RFQ). (iii) Incorporated provisions and clauses incorporated in this solicitation document are those in effect through Federal Acquisition Circular 2001-017, Title 48, October 20, 2003. (iv) The Contracting Officer has found and determined that the nature of the services to be performed are appropriate for an "unrestricted" procurement in accordance with FAR Subpart 19.502 entitled "Setting aside acquisition". (v) The following contract line item and survey specifications are as follows: Item 1. Quantitative data on the size, composition, and media habits of the audience of radio and television audiences in Iraq. Research specifications are as follows: 1) Nature of Survey. Audience data shall be obtained through a national survey of Iraq that is designed to obtain the most accurate possible information about: the number of regular (i.e. weekly) and occasional listeners to radio and television programs produced by the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors, the audience for other international and domestic broadcasters; the previous-day usage patterns among audiences for radio and television broadcasts; awareness of international broadcasts available either directly or through local rebroadcasts; audience opinions as to the accuracy, reliability, quality, and relevance of programming from major radio and television broadcasters; and general patterns of media use. The interviewing shall be face-to-face and conducted in the home of the respondent by a trained interviewer. IBB will require demographic information on each respondent including, gender, age, education, and occupation. 2) General Responsibilities of Contractor. The contractor shall be responsible for the project design, translation, formatting, pretesting, adaptation, and printing of IBB supplied questionnaires; developing the sampling plan; training interviewers; supervising fieldwork; cleaning and encoding survey responses; entering and processing the data; ascertaining the representativeness of the sample and weighting the data, if necessary; preparing cross-tabulations in data books; submitting data on diskette; and communicating all necessary information and results to IBB in a timely manner. 3) Sample Design. Interested quoters are herein requested to submit price quotations for a sample of 2000 adults, age 15 or older, representative by ethnicity, gender, age, and education of the population of Iraq, PLUS a booster sample of 500 in Iraq Kurdistan to permit independent analysis of media habits in that region. The sample shall be drawn using recognized probability methods, all the way down to the selection of the individual respondent at the household level. Only one individual per household shall be selected, and at least three attempts shall be made to interview selected respondents before substitution is allowed. A detailed Sampling Plan, including stratification criteria, description of the sampling frame, listing of anticipated Primary Sampling Units (PSUs), approximate number of interviews in each, procedures for selecting households within PSUs, and procedures for selecting individual respondents at the household level, shall be submitted to and approved by IBB prior to commencement of fieldwork. 4) Questionnaire. IBB will supply a set of questions for an interview lasting approximately 45 minutes. The questionnaire will consist of approximately 60 questions (in English), up to 5 of which may be open-ended. The questionnaire will be provided in draft form for suggestions and comments by the contractor based on the contractor's knowledge of local cultural or political sensitivities. Following receipt of contractor's comments, IBB will provide a final version of the questionnaire for translation by the contractor into Arabic and any other languages necessary for successful administration of the survey. The contractor shall prepare translations of the questionnaire in Arabic and other languages as agreed upon and shall submit these translations to IBB for approval prior to pre-test. The contractor shall be responsible for compiling a comprehensive list of both local and international broadcast media available in the local environment in the areas to be surveyed. This information will be used to compile a precoded list of stations on the survey and should be submitted to IBB for approval prior to finalization of the questionnaire. Following IBB's review of any contractor comments and final approval of translations of questionnaires, the contractor shall prepare final versions in Arabic and other languages as agreed upon in form suitable for use by interviewers. 5) Pre-test. The questionnaire shall be pre-tested by the contractor prior to the commencement of the fieldwork. At least 25 pre-test interviews shall be conducted. The contractor shall provide IBB with a written report of the results of the pre-test, along with details of any problems encountered and suggested remedies, prior to the commencement of any fieldwork. 6) Fieldwork. Interviews shall be conducted by experienced field workers who shall be thoroughly briefed by the contractor prior to commencement of work. The contractor shall ensure that interviewers are thoroughly familiar with household and respondent selection procedures, call back procedures, and the structure of the questionnaire, including routing and filtering. Interviewer training shall include practice sessions in administering the questionnaire. A minimum of 10% of interviews shall be back checked and 5% shall be accompanied by a team supervisor. The contractors proposal shall include a description of the professional qualifications of the proposed interviewers and a description of the training that will be provided to interviewers to ensure proper understanding of the survey instrument. 7) Data Processing. The contractor is responsible for data entry, cleaning, and processing. The contractor shall provide printed tabulations of results, including percentage responses to all questions broken down by gender, age group, and educational level. Tabulations shall show weighted and unweighted base and response frequencies for each question. The contractor shall supply data to IBB as an SPSS for Windows syntax file (*.sps) (SPSS version 8.0 or lower) file and as an SPSS "*.sav" file with a complete data dictionary of variable names and value labels. In addition, the contractor shall supply raw data in plain ASCII format, with codebook showing values and column locations of all variables. There shall be one data record for each respondent and records shall be of fixed length. If weights are used, weighting factors shall be in the same position on each record, with location specified in the codebook. Each record shall include a unique respondent ID number, interviewer ID number, PSU ID number, and codes for precise location and date of interview. Each record shall include demographic information about the respondent, including: gender, exact age, education level, occupation, and ethnicity. In addition to exact age, record for each respondent shall be coded by age group as follows: 15-24; 25-39; and 40+. This coding scheme shall be the age categories used in the printed tabulations mentioned above. 8) Technical Appendix. When delivering printed tabulations and raw data, the contractor shall provide a Technical Appendix which shall include the following: a) a complete Sampling Plan, including list of PSUs and individual sampling points and number of interviews conducted in each sampling point; b) details of response rates; c) interviewer instructions; d) brief report on survey operations including any practical difficulties encountered in conducting survey; e) estimated sampling error; f) complete explanation of the weighting scheme including details of how weighting factors were developed and applied, as well as the demographic data on which weights were based; and g) a brief description of each local radio and television station covered in the survey, including: ownership, political affiliation (if any), years of operation, hours of broadcast, means of broadcast (i.e. AM, FM, etc), and general program content. 8) Summary of deliverables (See preceding paragraphs for detailed description of requirements for each deliverable. The four Deliverables to be provided to IBB by the contractor under this contract are as follows: (a) Raw data on diskette in plain ASCII format, with codebook; (b) Complete data set formatted as SPSS file (see description above under A.7); (c) Printed tabulations of results; and (d) Technical Appendix. (vi) Audience Survey in Iraq (vii) Delivery Schedule. The contractor shall perform the work under this contract in accordance with the follow Delivery Schedule: (a) Provision of detailed sampling plan to IBB within 2 weeks of contractor receiving confirmation of contract award. (b) Submission of translated questionnaires within 1 weeks following contractor's receipt of IBB draft. (c) Pretesting to be completed and pretest report submitted to IBB within 2 weeks of IBB's approval of the questionnaire translations. (d) After pretesting and IBB approval of pretest report, interviewing shall begin within 1 week and be completed within an additional 6 weeks. (e) Cleaned, verified data and a final report must be delivered to IBB no later than 6 weeks after conclusion of the fieldwork. It is anticipated that fieldwork will begin by late January, 2004. Upon contract award, IBB will provide the contractor with an actual timetable for the completion of all phases of the work agreed upon, including precise dates when each portion of the work should be completed. The timetable shall be based on a schedule submitted by quoter with proposal, with any modifications to be mutually agreed upon by the contractor and IBB. If delays in the work are required due to circumstances beyond the contractor's control, the reasons and anticipated length of such delays must be reported immediately to IBB and must be approved by IBB in writing. Unless written approval is granted by IBB, all deliverables must be received by IBB by the date specified in the timetable. (viii) The provisions at FAR 52.212-1, Instructions to Offerors-Commercial Items in incorporated by reference. 1) Quoters are reminded to submit their DUNS Number with their price quotation. 2) Quoters responding to this RFQ shall include the following information in their technical proposal: a) Detailed description of the proposed research methodology, including specific listing of organizations the quoter shall use for fieldwork (if sub-contractors are to be used); b) Current information on the qualifications of quoter's office and field staff; c) Specific information on quoter's past experience in conducting media research and survey research in Iraq; d) detailed description of the proposed fieldwork plan, including sampling plan and procedures, number and type of sampling points and manner in which interviews will be allocated across the population; and e) A schedule showing the time required for each phase of the project which would include (a) translation, pretest, reporting of pretest results and printing of final questionnaire, (b) completion of fieldwork, (c) completion of data verification, data entry, and codebook, (d) delivery of data files and media environment/methodological report; 3) Omission of any of the points of information requested will weigh against the quoter during the Contracting Officer's evaluation of the proposal. 4) Price quotations submitted in response to this RFQ that exceed the Simplified Acquisition Threshold (as specified in FAR Subpart 2.101, Definitions) will not be considered as responsive to this RFQ. 5) The price quotation shall be submitted on a separate page from the Technical Capabilities/Experience and Schedule information. 6) In the event that price quotations for the work outlined in this RFQ significantly exceed IBB's budgetary limitations, IBB reserves the right to reduce the scope of the work specified herein. This could include reduction in the overall sample size and/or a reduction in the length and complexity of the questionnaire. 7) In the event that quoters can identify other clients to share the cost of this survey quoters are encouraged to propose such arrangements as an alternate proposal. Such proposals should state the number of additional clients anticipated and clearly indicate any reductions in overall interview time available for IBB-specific questions that may be necessitated as a result of multi-client sponsorship (ix) FAR 52.212-2, Evaluation, Commercial Items, applies to this acquisition. The Government will award a firm-fixed price contract (i.e. purchase order) resulting from this solicitation to the responsible offeror whose proposal conforming to the specification requirements contained herein will be most advantageous to the Government based on: A) The quoter's Technical Capabilities/Experience (for which there are (5) equally weighted subcriteria); and B) the quoter's Price Quotation. Of the two Selection Criteria, Technical Capabilities/Experience is the significantly dominant criterion over the price criterion. The Technical capabilities/Experience subcriteria are as follows: 1. Demonstrated experience in conducting quantitative research on broadcast media; 2) Demonstrated experience in conducting survey research in Iraq; 3) Quality of the proposed sampling technique; 4) Quality of the proposed procedures for data collection, entry, and verification; and 5) Ability to complete the project in a timely manner. (x) Offerors shall include a completed copy of the provisions at 52.212-3, Offeror Representations and Certifications--Commercial Items, with their offer. (xi) The FAR Clause 52.212-4, Contract Terms and Conditions-Commercial Items, applies to this acquisition -with no addenda to the clause. (xii) FAR Clause 52-212-5 Contract Terms and Conditions required to Implement Statues or Executive Orders-Commercial Items applies to this acquisition as well as the following clauses contained within FAR Clause 52.212-5: 52.222-19, Child Labor--Cooperation with Authorities and Remedies; 52.222-21, Prohibition of Segregated Facilities; 52.222-36, Affirmative Action for Workers with Disabilities; 52.222-26, Equal Opportunity (E.O. 13146); 52.222-35, Equal Opportunity for Special Disabled , Veterans of the Vietnam Era,and other Eligible Veterans (38 U.S.C. 793), 52.222-37, Employment Reports on Special Disabled Veterans, Veterans of the Vietnam Era and Other Veterans (38 U.S.C. 4212); 52.225-13, Restriction on Certain Foreign Purchases;52.232-33, Payment by Electronic Funds Transfer-Central Contractor Registration (31 U.S.C. 3332); (xiii) The following FAR clause is also applicable to this acquisition: 52.222-22, Previous Contracts and Compliance Reports. There are no additional contract requirement (s) or terms and conditions (such as contract financing arrangements or warranty requirement (s) necessary for this acquisition other than those consistent with customary commercial practices. (xiv) The Defense Priorities and Allocations System (DPAS) and assigned rating is not applicable to this acquisition. (xv) None of the Numbered Note are applicable to this acquisition. (xvi) Offers are due no NLT 3 PM, Friday, January 2, 2004 and they shall reference RFQ No. CON-04-0006. Price Quotations may be sent via either facsimile to (202) 205-1921; e-mail to lisaac@ibb.gov or by mail to BBG/IBB, Office of Contracts, 330 C Street, S.W., Room 2512, Washington, D.C. 20237, Attn: Lesley D. Isaac Jr. Offerors responding to this RFQ shall submit to the above-listed Contracting Officer the following information by mail, facsimile, or e-mail, as part of their quotation: unit and extend price for the above-listed items, prompt payment terms, correct remittance address if different from the offerors mailing address, and a completed copy of the provision 52.212-3, Offeror Representations and Certifications - Commercial Items. Full text of all FAR clauses and provisions are available electronically at the following Internet address: (http://www.arnet.gov/far). Oral price quotations will not be accepted for this acquisition. (xvii) Any questions related to this proposed procurement shall be submitted in writing directly and only to the Contracting Officer, Lesley D. Isaac Jr. NLT Monday, December 29, 2003. All responsible sources may submit a price quotation, which will be considered.
- Record
- SN00491944-W 20031220/031218211531 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
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