U.S. Information Agency, Office of Contracts, 330 C ST, SW, Room 1611, Washington, DC 20547

B -- AUDIENCE SURVEY IN HAITI POC Scott Michael, Tel.: (202) 619-2200, Fax.: (202) 205-3766; Gloria Sweetney Tel.: (202) 619-1623 B -- AUDIENCE SURVEY IN HAITI. This is a Request for Quotation No. B/PA-97-21 using Simplified Acquisition Procedures in Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 13. Quotes that exceed the simplified acquisition threshold will not be considered. The United States Information Agency (USIA), International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB), has a requirement for a contractor to obtain data on media habits among adults in several major Haitian cities, in particular on the size, composition and media usage patterns of the audience for Voice of America (VOA) radio programming. THIS REQUIREMENT IS SUBJECT TO THE AVAILABILITY OF FUNDS. Scope of Work: The contractor will obtain this data through a survey research instrument designed to obtain the most accurate possible information about: -- access to and use electronic media among respondents (radio, television, VCR, cable, satellite reception systems); -- the audience in the last year, month, week, and day for radio and television broadcasts available in major Haitian cities; -- the regular usage patterns (yearly, monthly, weekly or daily) of the audience for radio and television broadcasts available in major Haitian cities; -- the previous-day hourly usage patterns among audiences for radio and television broadcasts available in major Haitian cities; -- the demographic characteristics of respondents (sex, exact age, educational level, occupation, place of residence, and language comprehension); -- awareness among respondents of international broadcasts available either directly or through local rebroadcast in major Haitian cities; -- audience opinions as to the accuracy, reliability, quality and relevance of programming from major radio and television broadcasters; USIA will supply the contractor a set of approximately 80 questions (in English) for an interview of about one hour. In-person interviews are to be conducted in respondents' home by trained interviewers. The survey questionnaire will be administered to samples representative by sex, age, and education of the adult population (15 years and older) of each city included in the research, as determined by the most accurate and up-to-date demographic data available. Only one person per household will participate in the survey, and no respondent shall have participated in other market or opinion research in the six months prior to the date of interview. Offerors may submit bids on one or more of the following options as to coverage of major cities in Haiti with the respective minimum achieved individual and overall sample sizes: OPTION ONE: Port-au-Prince -- 750; Cap Haitien -- 250; Les Cayes -- 250; St. Marc -- 0; Port-de-Paix -- 0; Total 1250. OPTION TWO: Port-au-Prince -- 750; Cap Haitien -- 250; Les Cayes -- 250; St. Marc -- 250; Port-de-Paix -- 250; Total 1750. OPTION THREE: Port-au-Prince -- 1000; Cap Haitien -- 300; Les Cayes -- 300; St. Marc -- 300; Port-de-Paix -- 300; Total 2250. Contractor Responsibilities: The contractor will be responsible for: -- compiling comprehensive media environment information (name, frequency/channel, cable/satellite availability, hours of availability, and format of the available radio and television broadcasts) in each of the major cities included in the survey; -- translating, formatting, pretesting, adapting (where necessary), and printing questionnaires based on USIA-supplied questions; -- compiling accurate and up-to-date demographic information on the populations of each of the major cities included in the survey and designing a sampling plan to achieve the required coverage and composition; -- training interviewers and supervising fieldwork, including verification of a percentage of questionnaires received (to be agreed upon by the contractor and USIA); -- developing a coding scheme, entering data, checking and cleaning data for missing or conflicting responses that indicate erroneous information, ascertaining the representativeness of the achieved sample and (if necessary) developing weights to compensate for deviation from information known about the populations; -- creating a set of files that include the final questionnaire (in Creole and English, WordPerfect format if possible, or plain ASCII), codebook (WordPerfect or ASCII), and dataset (in SPSS format if possible, or in plain ASCII with information on column locations for each variable); -- creating an accurate codebook of the final dataset, detailing variable and value labels; -- preparing a brief (approx. 5 page) report summarizing the media environment data (listing station information by city) and detailing the methodology used and any special circumstances or issues that arose during fieldwork, supplied in hard copy and on disk (WordPerfect or ASCII). Delivery Schedule: Shortly after the contract award, the selected offeror will be given an English-language questionnaire for translation, adaptation, formatting and printing. Following USIA approval of the specific questionnaire, pretesting should begin immediately. The contractor should begin compiling media environment information immediately upon contract award in order to incorporate all major broadcasters in the printed questionnaire and to train interviewers (e.g., knowing the unavailability of cable in a particular area would alert interviewers to erroneous survey responses). After pretesting and USIA approval of the final questionnaire, interviewing should begin within 2-3 weeks and be completed within an additional 5 weeks. Cleaned, verified data and a final report must be delivered to USIA no later than 4 weeks after conclusion of the fieldwork. Selection Criteria: In addition to total project cost and ability to meet the proposed schedule, proposals will be evaluated and vendor selected on the basis of the following equally important technical criteria: -- demonstrated experience in conducting survey research on broadcast media; -- demonstrated experience in conducting survey research in Haiti and other countries in the region; -- quality of the proposed sampling technique; and -- quality of the proposed procedures for data collection, entry and verification. Each offeror's proposal shall include: -- detailed description of the proposed research methodology, including specific listing of organizations the offeror will use for fieldwork; -- current information on the qualifications of offeror's office and field staff; -- specific information on offeror's past experience in conducting media research and survey research in Haiti; -- 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 of the cities included in the survey; and -- a schedule showing the time required for each phase of the project: (1) translation, pretest, reporting of pretest results and printing of final questionnaire, (2) completion of fieldwork, (3) completion of data verification, data entry, and codebook, (4) delivery of data files and media environment/methodological report. Proposals and price quotations should be submitted within 15 days of the publication of this notice and shall reference this RFQ #B/PA-97-21. In addition to addressing the points noted above, submissions should also provide details on any subcontractors who would be engaged to work on these projects. Omission of any of the points of information requested will weigh against a proposal. Any firm that previously submitted a price quotation for this requirement will be considered and need not respond to this notice. Please submit any questions concerning technical requirements to: Scott Michael, Office of Research, International Broadcasting Bureau, U.S. Information Agency, 330 Independence Avenue, SW, Suite 3700, Washington, DC 20547, Phone (202) 619-2200, Fax (202) 205-3766. Proposal and price quotation should be faxed to Ms. Gloria Sweetney, Contracting Officer at (202) 205-1921. The price quote must be on a separate page from the proposal. (0232)

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