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

B -- NATIONAL AUDIENCE SURVEYS IN BOSNIA AND CROATIA POC Technical Point Contact: William Bell, Tele.: (202) 205-0205, Fax.: (202) 401-1494, Contracting Officer: Lorraine Mullen Tele: (202) 260-2933 B -- THIS IS A REQUEST FOR QUOTATION (RFQ). The United States Information Agency's International Bureau of Broadcasting has a requirement, subject to availability of funds, for a contractor to obtain data on the size, composition, and media habits of the audience to Voice of America (VOA) radio and television broadcasts in Bosnia and Croatia. The work will involve survey research designed to obtain the most accurate possible information about: the number of regular (i.e. weekly) and occasional listeners to VOA radio programs, the number of viewers of VOA TV programs, the demographic characteristics and geographical distribution of the audience, the size of the regular listening audience for other international and domestic broadcasters, general patterns of media use, and opinions on the part of the audience as to the accuracy, reliability, and r elevance of the programs of VOA and other broadcasters. VOA will supply a set of questions for an interview of approximately 1 hour consisting of approximately 70 questions, up to 5 of which may be open-ended. The interviewing is to be face-to-face and conducted in the home of the respondent by a trained interviewer. VOA will require demographic information on each respondent, including sex, exact age, nationality, native language, education, type of work, type of settlement, and place of residence. The information cited above shall be obtained via a survey of a representative sample of the national populations of Bosnia and Croatia. In Bosnia, VOA will require an achieved sample of at least 1500 adults, 15 years and older, representative by nationality, sex, region, age, and education of the adult population. The sample shall be divided approximately equally between residents of the predominantly Muslim region of central Bosnia, the Bosnian Serb republic, and the predominantly Croat regions of Weste rn Bosnia. In Croatia, VOA will require an achieved sample of 1000 adults 15 years and older, representative by nationality, sex, region, age, and education of the adult population. Precise details of the sample design in each country shall be subject to final agreement between VOA and the winning bidder. The contractor shall be responsible for the project design, translation, formatting, pretesting and, if necessary, adaptation and printing of VOA supplied questionnaires, conducting the survey sample, training of interviewers, supervision of fieldwork, cleaning and encoding the responses, entering and processing the data, ascertaining the representativeness of the sample and weighting the data, if necessary; preparing cross-tabulations in data books and final reports on diskettes and communicating all neces sary information and results to VOA in a timely manner. At the conclusion of the project, the contractor shall prepare a final narrative report for each country of 5 -- 10 pages in length, summarizing the main findings from the surveys. Proposed Time Schedule: Shortly after contract award, the selected offeror will be given an English language questionnaire for translation into Croatian, Bosnian, and Serbian. Following VOA approval of the specific translated questionnaire, pretest should begin immediately. After pretesting, the interviewing shall begin within 2-3 weeks following VOA approval of the final questionnaire, with completion within a 2 week period. Marginal frequency results shall be delivered to VOA within 2 weeks of completi on of the fieldwork. Cross tabulations with selected demographic characteristics, files in ASCII containing full questions with the marginals and all raw data (cleaned) on computer diskettes, as well as SPSS if possible, shall be delivered to VOA within 4 weeks of completion of fieldwork. Proposal evaluation and contract selection will be made on the basis of the equally important technical criteria listed below, in addition to total project cost and ability to meet the proposed schedule. A. Past performance and experience of firm with at least 3 references B. Quality of the sampling technique C. Quality of data collection and data-entering procedures The proposal shall include a detailed description of the proposed research methodology, including specific listing of organizations the offeror will use for fieldwork, current information on qualifications of offeror's staff and field staff, training of interviewers, sampling plan and procedures for conducting the above work, including number and type of sampling points and way in which interviews will be allocated across the population. Further, the proposal shall include a schedule with a break out showi ng: 1) number of days required for translation, pretest, reporting pretest results, and printing of final questionnaire; 2) duration of fieldwork, 3) time required for entering and cleaning data and preparing marginals, 4) time required for delivering cross tabulations and raw data files on diskettes (2 copies),cross tabulations in data books (2 printed copies), and time required for production of final report. Please note that omission of any of the points of information noted herein willweigh against your proposal from being selected for this work. Due date: Quotes should be submitted no later than August 11, 1997 and shall reference this RFQ No. B/PA-97-20. Please submit any questions concerning technical requirements to: William Bell, Director of Research, International Broadcasting Bureau at (202) 205-0215 or by fax at (202) 205-3766. Proposal and price quotation should be faxed to Lorraine Mullen, Contrac ting Offier, at (202) 205-1921. The price quote must be on a separate page from the proposal. (0205)

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