SOO_OTT_Video_On_Demand_Enhancements_2020_copy_Final_IQT01719IQ00010_pm_7_21_19.docx

United States Agency for Global Media Office of Business Development/Technical Services and Innovation

OTT Video Cloud Distribution Platform Enhancements

Statement of Objectives

Background:

Important Notice: This Statement of Objectives is issued based on the availability of funding. The Office of Technology, Services and Innovation reserves the right to cancel the procurement and issue no award.

The United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) is the agency charged with U.S. international broadcasting, serving a weekly audience of 345 million adults via 60 languages in approximately 100 countries. USAGM broadcasters include the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa, Radio Free Asia, and Radio and TV Martí.

USAGM reaches audiences across an array of platforms, including terrestrial, satellite, and cable television, radio, and, increasingly, digital and social media.

As consumer behaviors change, so must USAGM’s tactics for delivering content. In recent years, there has been a rapid increase in video consumption. This is occurring not only with short-form content via social, but also long-form and linear content via Video On-Demand (VOD), Over-The-Top (OTT), and handheld devices (especially mobile phones).

While many of USAGM’s language services provide linear feeds of channels or episodic content via their own websites and sites such as YouTube, the agency previously lacked a holistic, consumer-facing VOD/OTT solution.

The deployment of a holistic VOD/OTT solution expands the availability of USAGM content to would-be consumers who are not served by traditional affiliates or satellite coverage, including diaspora, and provide a catch-up service for those who missed the original broadcast of programming on affiliates or owned and operated channels. Further, the solution allows for additional consumption of evergreen content, such as documentaries and archive interviews.

USAGM has now deployed such a VOD/OTT solution and seeks ongoing enhancements and expansion of the solution.

Statement of Objectives:

In the project’s first phase, USAGM has developed a VOD/OTT solution that delivers 13 languages via eight Apps (sometimes referred to as platforms): Android TV, Android Mobile, iOS, Apple TV, Amazon/Kindle Fire, Samsung Smart TV, LG TV, and Roku.

Current languages include English, Arabic, Mandarin, Russian, Ukrainian, French, Spanish, Farsi, Kurdish, Korean, Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Cantonese.

Second-year objectives have been identified, and are as follows:

1) Development hours to add up to 7 complex (non-Latin character) languages; to be determined.

USAGM makes content available in languages including but not limited to: Afaan Oromo, Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Bambara, Bashkir, Belarusian, Bengali, Bosnian, Burmese, Cantonese, Chechen, Chinese (Mandarin), Croatian, Dari, French, Georgian, Haitian Creole, Hausa, Indonesian, Kazakh, Khmer, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Korean, Kurdish, Kyrgyz, Lao, Macedonian, Montenegrin, Ndebele, Pashto, Persian (Farsi), Pilipino, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbia, Shona, Somali, Spanish, Swahili (Kiswahili), Tajik, Tatar, Thai, Tibetan, Tigrigna, Turkish, Turkmen, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uyghur, Uzbek, and Vietnamese.

2) Development hours to add at least one additional platform to be determined, but currently expected to be Chromecast.

3) Development hours to deploy additional enhancements to the apps designed to increase the usability of the apps and improve the user experience.

4) Development hours for the ongoing integration to USAGM analytics platforms.

5) A bank of development hours to improve Section 508 compliance.

6) Development hours intended for ongoing improvements to a SaaS media management/CMS/API solution that manages and feeds content from CDN(s) to the Apps. In addition to those hours, offeror must price the license for the SaaS solution, if applicable.

Technical Requirements:

The solution must be CDN (Content Delivery Network) agnostic. USAGM expects to continue its existing CDN relationship(s) and the solution must work within that environment. USAGM expects to handle the vast majority of transcoding and delivery, including that of live 24/7 streams. Therefore offerors should not price in storage, transcoding, or delivery bandwidth costs as they will be considered out of scope.

The current solution features: A) a scalable, cloud-based Platform with the ability to store, manage, and play out or otherwise deliver media assets in the form of video, audio, and text, B) a permissions system allowing for multiple levels of employee access, C) output of HTML5-compatible video as well as RTMP, HLS, MPEG DASH and other popular on-demand and live streaming formats, with playlist feature and the enabling of automatic play of featured content, D) metadata fields akin to AP Metadata or similar, E) cloud-based ability to upload, access, and create/edit new content from multiple global locations simultaneously (create/edit new component preferable but not mandatory) F) a consumer-friendly UX (user interface) or VOD playout via aforementioned devices competitive with consumer experiences offered by Netflix, HBO Go, Amazon Prime Video, the BBC iPlayer, and the like, G) the ability to integrate with the broadcast media asset management system, Dalet, Pangea – USAGM’s custom CMS (SOAP/REST API), and known global Content Delivery Networks (CDN), H) the ability to incorporate Digital Rights Management (DRM), I) the ability to incorporate geo-blocking, and J) search functionality.

Vendor must demonstrate existing ability to deliver at scale by citing relevant client case studies.

Vendor must suggest a reasonable exit or sunsetting strategy should a new contractor be awarded contract in out years. For example, to prevent “orphaning” of Apps, Apps and related code would become property of USAGM to aid in transition to a new platform.

USAGM requires a seamless and integrated enterprise solution that is compatible with and runs on Windows or Linux Operating Systems.

Miscellaneous:

Vendor should provide information relating to Section 508 compliance, type of license (or buyout if applicable), and reference previous projects and/or clients of similar size and scope if applicable. If solution is licensed, USAGM prefers enterprise level.

Deliverables:

Vendor to provide project roadmap, engage in an on-premises strategic site visit, on premises training at launch, weekly remote meetings, weekly status reports, regular software upgrades and debugging as required.

Weekly Meetings

Discussions via Skype for Business or Similar, software enhancements delivered to USAGM via internet, or delivered directly to third party platforms (Samsung, Apple online stores, etc.) as needed.

Period of Performance:

POP is one year from date of award. Project roadmap due within two weeks of award. Majority of major enhancements expected to be fully operational within 210 days of award date.

Costs:

In addition to cost of acquisition and deployment, please list and describe any recurring operational costs and other potential or otherwise unforeseen costs.

Key Personnel:

USAGM: The main point of contact for USAGM will be the Contracting Officer Representative (COR), to be identified upon contract award.

However, the weekly status meetings and report will be delivered to and consist of a team of USAGM individuals. These individuals will be identified and introduced to the contractor upon contract award. All communication should include this team unless alternative direction is given.

Contractor: The contractor shall appoint a supervising point of contact that is responsible for the deliverables. This person will be the main point of contact for USAGM and will give updates, answer questions, and keep USAGM informed of any issues, delays, etc.

The supervisor will give USAGM a list of its team members (name and contact information) who are working on this contract; a brief professional biography of key players is encouraged in proposal submission.