Anticipated_Needs_Requirement_LEB.docx

ANTICIPATED NEEDS REQUIREMENT

2016 LEBANON SURVEY

The Broadcasting Board of Governors/ International Broadcasting Bureau and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN) have a requirement to obtain estimates of media access and habits, the reach of domestic and foreign media outlets, detailed feedback from the audience of Alhurra/Radio Sawa, and selected opinion questions, among a probability sample of the adult population (15+ years old) of Lebanon.

OBJECTIVES OF THE RESEARCH

Audience data shall be obtained through a survey of Lebanon that is designed to obtain the most accurate possible information about: (a) the size of the audience for BBG’s Alhurra and Radio Sawa, (b) the size of the regular and occasional audience for other international and domestic television and radio broadcasters, (c) demographic characteristics and geographical distribution of these audiences; and (d) general patterns of media use. In addition, a small number of questions concerning respondents’ views on various social and political questions may be included in the survey. The interviews shall be face-to-face and they shall be conducted in the home of the respondent by a trained interviewer. BBG will require demographic information on each respondent including gender, age, and education.

The main research objective is to obtain a full picture of the media environment in Lebanon, particularly to estimate access to and use of various media, the reach of particular outlets (most importantly, U.S. international and other foreign broadcasters), perceptions of media outlets and audience interests in topics, formats, etc. A secondary objective is to estimate the relative efficacy of using different platforms for content delivery.

BACKGROUND

ENTITY/LANGUAGES: Arabic.

DISTRIBUTION: Alhurra and Radio Sawa are available 24/7 on Nilesat and Arabsat covering the entire Arabic speaking world from the Atlantic to the Gulf. Radio Sawa broadcasts on FM in Jordan, Kuwait, the UAE, Libya, Djibouti, and Iraq. It is broadcast on medium wave from transmitters in Cyprus (covering Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, and the Eastern Mediterranian) in the UAE (covering parts of Saudi Arabia), in Kuwait (covering Iraq) and in Djibouti (covering Sudan, Yemen, and parts of Saudi Arabia). Both Radio Sawa and Alhurra are available via live streaming at www.alhurra.com and www.radiosawa.com

RESEARCH TASKS

(1) General Responsibilities of Contractor. The contractor shall be responsible for the project design and execution, including the following specific tasks:

(a) translation, formatting, pretesting, adaptation, and printing of questionnaires;

(b) development of a Sampling Plan, to be based a multistage stratified plan; list and explain any geographic exclusions; the proposed Sampling Plan will be reviewed by the MBN Office of Research and any further changes agreed upon by MBN and Contractor will be incorporated;

(e) entering and processing the survey data, including data cleaning and encoding survey responses;

(f) ascertaining the representativeness of the sample and weighting the data, if necessary;

(g) Statistical analysis of findings and writing an analytic report for each survey of approximately 25 pages.

(2) Questionnaire. The latest CIBAR questionnaire will be adapted for Lebanon. It is anticipated that 1-2 other broadcasters will participate in this survey along with BBG. BBG requests translations into Arabic. Full versions all translation should be printed and interviewers should be allowed to code the questionnaire in the interview language. The questionnaire may call for showcards, which need to be printed in all translated languages. The estimated average interview duration is 60 minutes. Some interviews will last longer; others will last for a shorter time, depending on the respondent’s use of international media.

(3) Sample Design. BBG requires a total sample of 1500 adults, age 15 or older, that is representative of the population of the survey universe. Planned exclusions of the population of the survey universe (e.g. geographic etc.) must be discussed during quotation stage.

The sample shall be drawn using recognized probability methods, all the way down to the selection of the individual respondent at the household level. In the event that any departure from probability sampling methods is recommended by the bidder for all or any part of the survey, the sampling methodologies to be employed shall be described in detail and a rationale for their use shall be provided. A detailed sampling plan shall be submitted to the BBG prior to fieldwork, including a description of the survey coverage, allocation of the sample, description of the sampling frame, description of any stratification criteria to be used, description of the stages of selection and the selections methods to be used at each stage, a definition of the PSUs and approximate number of interviews to be conducted within each PSU, the method to be used for selection of the respondent at the household level, an explanation for any divergence from use of the KISH grid for respondent selection, and call-back rules to be employed. It is assumed that the sample will be distributed in proportion to the population of each region or other geographic unit to be surveyed; in the event that the bidder wishes to propose a sample design departing from this principle the proposal should describe the allocation to be used and the reasons for doing so.

(4) Pre-test. The questionnaire shall be pre-tested by the contractor prior to the commencement of any fieldwork. No less than 20 pre-test interviews shall be conducted. The contractor shall provide MBN 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.

(5) Fieldwork. Interviews shall be conducted by experienced field workers who shall be thoroughly briefed by 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. It is strongly preferable that all interviewers attend a central training. The BBG recognizes logistics and cost considerations may make a central training for 100% of the interviewers not feasible, and allows for up to 10% of interviews to be conducted by interviewers who did not attend the central training but were trained by a supervisor instead (who attend the central training). All interviewers must have at least completed secondary education and must be fully fluent (reading and speaking) in the language(s) in which they are to administer the interviews. A minimum of 10% of interviews shall 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 with a 20% double-punch standard, cleaning, and processing, including development and implementation of a coding scheme for all open-ended questions. The contractor shall supply data to IBB as a clean, fully labeled SPSS “*.sav” file with a complete data dictionary of variable names and value labels. There shall be one data record for each respondent and records shall be of fixed length. The contractor shall be responsible for deriving and applying any post-stratification weights required to bring the sample into conformity with the demographic profile of the population, as well as any additional weighting factors required to correct for disproportionate allocation, if use. If demographic data is available, those without formal education will be treated separated from those with a least some primary education. 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, and education level.

The contractor will add derived variables to the dataset, including the reach of international broadcasters (by language, distribution platform and content production platforms), select impact indicators, leading news sources, and age groups and language skills.

(7) Technical Report. When delivering data, the contractor shall provide a Technical Report which shall include the following:

(a) A complete Sampling Plan, including list of PSUs and individual sampling points and number of interviews conducted at each sampling point.

(b) Details of response rates, including tabulation of unsuccessful interview attempts by sampling point, with reasons for non-response (i.e. respondent refusal, proxy refusal, inability to locate selected respondent, etc.).

(c) Interviewer instructions;

(d) A brief report on survey operations including any practical difficulties encountered in carrying out the survey;

(e) Estimated sampling error;

(f) A 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 (i.e., age, gender, and education distributions in the population);

(8) Analytical Report. The analytical report of approximately 25 pages (incl. charts and Appendices) will cover:

(9) Summary of deliverables. The Deliverables to be provided to IBB by the contractor are as follows:

(a) A complete data set formatted as SPSS file

(b) A copies of the final questionnaire, as fielded, in English and translations

(c) Recodes of the following variables: Reach of Radio Sawa via any platform; reach of Alhurra via any platform; combined unduplicated reach of Radio Sawa/Alhurra via any platform; overlap of international broadcasters (i.e. % who listen only to Radio Sawa, % who listen only to BBC, etc) technical report as described above.

(d) A technical report as described above.

(e) An analytical report

(10) Delivery Schedule. Contractor will advise BBG/IBB on a feasible timeline for completing work on this project as soon as possible, with the deliverables listened in Section 9 above to be submitted no later than 10 weeks after the conclusion of fieldwork. The period of performance is 1/21/2016 until 8/21/2016.