U.S. Information Agency, International Broadcasting Bureau, Office of Personnel and Administration, Contracts and Procurement Division, B/PA/AC, Room 1645, 330 Independence Ave., S.W., Washington, DC 20547

B -- AUDIENCE SURVEY IN INDIA SOL B/PA-99-14 DUE 051499 POC Contact Point/Contracting Officer: Gloria Sweetney, Contracting Officer, Telephone: (202)619-1623; Facsimile: (202) 205-921. This public notice is also a written Request for Quotation (RFQ) No. B/PA-99-14 pursuant to procurement of the required services as described below using the "Simplified Acquisition Procedures" specified in Part 13 of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR). 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. The United States Information Agency's International Broadcasting Bureau (USIA/IBB) has a requirement, subject to availability of funds, for a contractor to obtain quantitative data on the size, composition, and media habits of the audience for Voice of America (VOA) broadcasts in the five core Hindi-speaking states of India Rajastan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, and Delhi/Haryana. Quoters are herein requested to submit, written price quotations and technical capabilities/experience information for conducting a survey of these states as outlined below. SECTION A: SURVEY REQUIREMENTS -- (1) Nature of Survey. Audience data shall be obtained through a survey of the core Hindi-speaking states of India (as stated above) designed to obtain the most accurate possible information about: the number of regular (i.e. weekly) and occasional listeners to VOA; the demographic characteristics and geographical distribution of the audience; the size of the regular and occasional listening audience for other international and domestic broadcasters; program interests; and general patterns of media use. The interviews will be face-to-face, and they will be conducted in the home of the respondent by a trained interviewer. IBB will require demographic information on each respondent; including, gender, age, mother tongue and home language, education, occupation, and area of residence; (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 a Sampling Plan; training interviewers; organizing and supervising fieldwork; cleaning and encoding survey responses; entering and processing the survey 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 audience survey information and results to IBB in a timely manner; (3) Sample Design. Respondents shall be adults, age 15 or older, representative by ethnicity, gender, region (urban vs rural), age, and education of the adult population. Quoters shall submit price quotations for achieved samples of 5000, 6000, and 7000. While precise distribution of the sample will be worked out in consultation between IBB and the contractor, the overall sample shall be allocated so that a minimum achieved sample of 1000 is achieved in each state. (For purposes of sample allocation, Delhi and Haryana shall be treated as a single state.) In addition, the contractor shall submit a separate price quotation for a booster sample of 1000 urban males in Bihar. Weights shall be developed and applied by the contractor to the data to correct for the imbalance caused by disproportionate sample allocation, in addition to any other post-stratification weighting required to bring the sample into conformity with the known demographic characteristics of the population of interest. 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 IBB prior to commencement of any fieldwork. The Sampling Plan shall also include a description of the training and instructions to be provided to the fieldwork team; (4) Questionnaire. IBB will supply a set of questions for an interview of approximately one hour consisting of approximately 75 questions (in English), up to 5 of which may be open-ended. The questionnaire will be provided in draft form for suggestions and comments, based on the contractor's knowledge of local cultural and/or political sensitivities. The contractor shall prepare translations of the questionnaire in Hindi and any other languages agreed upon by the contractor and IBB as necessary for successful administration of the survey. Translated questionnaires shall be submitted to IBB for approval. The contractor shall be responsible for compiling a comprehensive list of media available in the local environment (i.e., name of TV and radio stations that respondents are likely to listen/watch; frequency/channel; cable/satellite availability) in each of the major areas to be surveyed. This information will be used to compile a precoded list of stations on the survey. Following IBB's review of any contractor comments and final approval of translations of questionnaires, contractor shall prepare field versionsin Hindi and other languages as agreed suitable for use by interviewers. 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 by the contractor. The contractor shall advise IBB of the results of the pre-test, along with details of any problems encountered and suggested remedies, prior to the commencement of any fieldwork; (5) Fieldwork. Interviews shall be conducted by experienced field workers who shall be thoroughly briefed by the contractor prior to commencement of any fieldwork. 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 will be back checked and 5% of the interviews shall be accompanied by a team supervisor; (6) Data Processing. The contractor shall be 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, education level, and urban/rural status. Tabulations shall show weighted and unweighted bases for each question. The contractor shall supply data to IBB as an SPSS portable (*.por) or SPSS for Windows (*.sav -- version 6.1 or lower) file with a complete data dictionary of variable names. The Contractor shall also supply raw data on computer diskettes in ASCII fixed format with accompanying codebook identifying location of all variables and coding scheme. There shall be one data record for each respondent and records shall be of fixed length. 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 ofinterview and whether interview location was categorized as urban or rural. Each record shall include demographic information about the respondent, including: gender, exact age, education level, occupation, and ethnicity; (7) Technical Report. When delivering printed tabulations and raw data, the contractor shall provide a "Technical Report" which will include the following: (a) A complete Sampling Plan, including list and maps of PSUs and individual sampling points and number of interviews conducted at each sampling point-details of response rates; (b) -interviewer instructions; (c) A brief report on survey operations including any practical difficulties encountered by the contractor in conducting the survey; (d) The estimated sampling error; and (e) The weighting scheme including details of how weighting factors were developed and applied, as well as the demographic data on which weights were based; (8) Summary of deliverables. See preceding paragraphs for detailed description of requirements for each deliverable. The three Deliverables to be provided to IBB by the contractor under this contract are as follows: (a) Raw data from the survey compiled on computer diskette; (b) Printed tabulations of all survey results; and (c) A "Technical Report" per Subsection A.7; (9) Delivery Schedule. The contractor shall perform the work under this contract in accordance with the following Delivery Schedule: (a). Provision of detailed "Sampling Plan" to IBB within 4 weeks of contractor's receipt of confirmation of contract award: (b) Submission of translated questionnaires within 2 weeks following contractor's receipt of IBB's draft questionnaire; (c) Pretesting shall begin within 2 weeks following IBB's approval of the final questionnaire; (d) After pretesting and IBB's approval of the final questionnaire, interviewing shall begin within 2 weeks and be completed within an additional 12 weeks; and (e) Cleaned, verified data and the "Technical Report" shall be delivered to IBB no later than 8 weeks after conclusion of all fieldwork. SECTION B: SUBMISSION OF RESPONSES TO THE RFQ (i.e., TECHNICAL INFORMATION) -- In the event that all price quotations for the work specified in this RFQ significantly exceed IBB's budget, IBB reserves the right to reduce the scope of the work specified herein. This action could include reduction in the overall sample size and/or a reduction in the length and complexity of the questionnaire for the survey, or both. Each quoter's response to this RFQ shall include sufficient quantitative/qualitative information on the following technical items to enable the IBB to objectively evaluate the quoter's capabilities/experience to successfully perform the work specified in the above Section A of this RFQ: (a). A detailed description of the proposed research methodology to be used by the quoter for this work, including specific listing of organizations the quoter shall use for performing the fieldwork; (b) Current information on the qualifications of quoter's office and field staff who will participate inperforming the work specified in the above Section A of this RFQ; (c) Specific information on quoter's past experience in conducting media research and survey research in India; (d) A detailed description of the proposed fieldwork plan, including the quoter's "Sampling Plan" and sampling procedures, the number and type of sampling points and the manner in which interviews shall be allocated across the population of the states included in the survey; and (e) A schedule showing the time required for each phase of the project, consistent with the "Delivery Schedule" specified in above Subsection A.9. This would include (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. SECTION C. SELECTION CRITERIA -- A contract (i.e., Purchase Order) award will be made by the contracting officer based on: A) the quoter'sTechnical Capabilities/Experience (for which there are six (6) 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 and/or qualitative research on broadcast media.; (2) Professional qualifications of key project leaders; (3) Demonstrated experience in conducting survey research and/or focus groups in India; (4) Quality of the proposed sampling technique; (5) Quality of the proposed procedures for data collection, entry, and verification; and (6) Ability to complete the project in a timely manner. Each response to this RFQ shall also include a schedule showing the key project milestone dates (i.e., project start-date; completion date; dates of key events within a project activity; beginning/ending dates, etc.). In addition to specifically addressing the above-stated technical items, a quoter's response to this RFQ shall also provide technical details on any proposed subcontractors who would be engaged to work on this project. Omission of any of the above-requested information pertaining to the quoter and/or any subcontractors proposed by the quoter in performing this contract, will weigh against the quoter during the Contracting Officer's evaluation of the quoter's response to this RFQ. Firms interested in the above described work are requested to submit their responses to this RFQ (i.e., Technical Capabilities/Experience and Schedule information, and Price quotation) by the close of business (5 p.m. EST), Friday, May 14, 1999, and they shall reference this RFQ No. B/PA-99-14 in their transmittal letter to the Contracting Officer. All questions (technical or otherwise) by a prospective quoter regarding this RFQ shall be in writing. Any questions and the quoter's complete written response to this RFQ shall be sent directly and only to the Contracting Officer for this procurement, Ms. Gloria Sweetney, via facsimile at (202) 205-1921. The Price quotations submitted as part of a quoter's response to this RFQ shall be on a separate page from the above-requested Technical Capabilities/Experience and Schedule information. In addition to the quoter's proposed Total Contract Price, the quoter's Price quotation shall be further broken down into the following component prices: a)preparation work; b)fieldwork; c)data processing; d)report preparation; and e) miscellaneous. The Contracting Officer has found and determined that this proposed work is appropriate for an "unrestricted" procurement pursuant to FAR Subpart 19.502 (Setting Aside Acquisitions). All responsible sources may submit a quotation which will be considered. Posted 04/21/99 (W-SN322533). (0111)

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