UPLINK TO DIRECT-TO-HOME TELEVISION SERVICES

(i) THIS IS A COMBINED SYNOPSIS/SOLICITATION FOR A COMMERCIAL ITEM PREPARED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE FORMAT IN SUBPART 12.6 AS SUPPLEMENTED WITH ADDITIONAL INFORMATION INCLUDED IN THIS NOTICE. THIS ANNOUNCEMENT CONSTITUTES THE ONLY SOLICITATION; PROPOSALS ARE BEING REQUESTED AND A WRITTEN SOLICITATION WILL NOT BE ISSUED. (ii) Solicitation No. BBG50-R-14-0051 is issued as a Request For Proposal (RFP) and a contract will be awarded using the contracting by negotiation procedures in FAR Part 15. (iii) This solicitation document and incorporated provisions and clauses are those in effect from the Federal Acquisition Regulations 2005-76, dated July 25, 2014 . (iv). This is a total small business set aside. The North American Industry Classification Systems (NAICS) code for this acquisition is 517110 and the small business size standard is $15.0M (v). The contractor shall provide the Contract Line Items as shown in the Addendum A entitled Price Schedule. (vi.) The Broadcasting Board of Governors, International Broadcasting Bureau (BBG/IBB), Office of Contracts (CON) located in Washington, D.C. anticipates a need (subject to availability of funding) to lease broadcast time from a Spanish Language Television (TV) Broadcaster in the Miami, Florida market area whose signal is carried on the local channel service of DirecTV and similar direct-to-home satellite services in the Miami, Florida market area. The objective in leasing these specific broadcast services is to take advantage of the direct-to-home services south Florida satellite footprint spillover to reach the Office of Cuba Broadcasting’s (OCB) audiences in Cuba for its TV Marti programming. OCB may be interested in leasing broadcast time, subject to availability of funds, consisting of half hour or one hour blocks of time on one or more satellite channels during the following timeframes: between the hours of 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. (Monday – Friday) and 5:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. (Monday - Friday). OCB may also need a one hour block ( to be priced as a one hour block ) between 4:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m. (Saturday/and/or Sunday). Addendum A – Price Schedule indicates OCB’s preferred time blocks in priority order. The time slots selected will be made in this order of priority and are subject to the availability of funding, and the availability of broadcast time for purchase. For each half hour block, there will be three 2 minute commercial breaks within each half hour. The contractor will be allowed one minute in each commercial break for their own announcements or commercials (a total of 3 minutes in each half hour). The Contractor may broadcast its own station announcements before or after OCB programs, but not within OCB programs, except for the aforementioned commercial breaks. Station announcements shall be limited to commercials and features of local interest and must be clearly distinguished from the OCB and the United States Government and shall be done with the highest degree of integrity and business ethics. There shall be no political advertising immediately before or after the OCB-provided programming. Station announcements before or after OCB programming shall adhere to all FCC standards and contain no lewd or lascivious content. The Contractor shall provide detailed information on any signal-processing of the OCB-provided programming prior to its uplink. The uplinked OCB program signal to DirecTV shall meet or exceed the MPEG2/DVB commercial standard. The Contractor must also provide day-to-day operational contact information, Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS) contact information as well as escalation contact information in the event there is an extensive problem that requires higher level managerial attention. The Contractor shall receive the OCB transmissions through the Miami Switch (http://www.theswitch.tv/) managed by Beers Enterprise, OR establish terrestrial fiber optic cable facilities from the OCB Miami facility (4201 NW 77 th Ave) facility to their DirecTV satellite transmission uplink facility at their own cost. Any/All ancillary equipment or devices associated with this connectivity shall be the responsibility of the Contractor. (vii) The period of performance is September 1, 2014 through February 28, 2015, with two six month option periods – March 1, 2015 – August 31, 2015, and September 1, 2015 – February 29, 2016. The Contractor shall submit a monthly invoice electronically to OCB, for services provided the preceding month. (viii) The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) provision FAR 52.212-1 Instruction to Offerors-Commercial Items, applies to this solicitation. FAR provisions and clauses may be obtained from the Internet Web address at: http://acquisition.gov/far/index.html. (ix) The government intents to award award one or more Commercial Item, Firm-Fixed Price contracts resulting from this RFP utilizing Lowest Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA) source selection procedures in accordance with FAR 15.101-2. By submission of its proposal, the Offeror acknowledges that it will comply with all of the requirements under this solicitation, including stated terms, conditions, representations and certifications. Offerors will be evaluated on the information in their proposal and award(s) will be made to the lowest priced, technically acceptable proposal in each CLIN/time block in Addendum A. Offerors shall submit two volumes: 1) Price: The offeror shall identify in its proposal the availability and price of leasing time for each proposed half hour or hour of broadcast time(s) available ; and 2) Technical: The offeror shall provide a narrative and detailed information on the following technical requirements: Offerors shall: a) be a Spanish Language Television (TV) Broadcaster in the Miami, Florida market area whose signal is carried on a local channel direct to home satellite service (e.g DirecTV, Dish network) b) have a program signal to DirecTV or equivalent that meets or exceeds the MPEG2/DVB commercial standard ; and c) be able to receive the OCB transmissions through The Miami Switch ( http://www.theswitch.tv/ ) managed by Beers Enterprise, OR establish terrestrial fiber optic cable facilities from the OCB Miami facility (4201 NW 77 th Ave) facility to their DirecTV satellite transmission uplink facility at their own cost. Failure to meet any of the three requirements listed above shall result in an offer being determined technically unacceptable. The Government shall first evaluate the technical proposal to determine if the proposal is technically acceptable on a Pass/Fail basis, assigning either a Pass or a Fail rating: Pass – Proposal meets the minimum requirements of the solicitation, or Fail – Proposal does not Proposal meets the minimum requirements of the solicitation. A rating of “Fail” will render the entire proposal unacceptable, and therefore, ineligible for award. The Government shall then conduct a price evaluation of all technically acceptable offers for each CLIN/time block, including any option prices. Proposals will then be ranked from lowest overall price to the highest by CLIN. All technically acceptable Offerors shall be treated equally except for their prices for each relevant CLIN/time Slot. Depending upon the availability of funding, the Government will select specific time slots or a combination of availabilities commensurate with OCB’s mission requirements and in accordance with the order of priority listed in Addendum A. The Government reserves the right to not make any awards for certain CLINS/time slots which are not in the Government’s interest. (x) Offerors shall include a completed copy of the provision FAR 52.212-3 Offeror Representations and Certifications-Commercial Items with its offer. Offerors may either submit a paper copy of FAR Clause 52.212-3 or submit this information through the System of Award Management (SAM) at HTTPS://WWW.SAM.GOV/PORTAL/PUBLIC/SAM/. Proposals must also include contractor's DUNS Number, prompt payment terms, and correct remittance address, if different from mailing address. THE CONTRACTOR MUST BE REGISTERED ONLINE IN THE SAM WEB SITE PRIOR TO CONTRACT AWARD. (xi) The FAR clause 52.212-4 Contract Terms and Conditions-Commercial Items, applies to this acquisition with addendum to the clause. The addendum is as follows: CONTRACTING OFFICER REPRESENTATIVE: The Contracting Officer will appoint by letter a Contracting Officer Representative (COR), who will have the responsibility of ensuring that the work conforms to the requirements of the contract and such other responsibilities and authorities as may be specified in the letter of authorization or this contract. It is understood and agreed, in particular, that the COR shall not have authority to make changes in the scope or terms and conditions of the contract unless and only to the extent that such authority is specified in the letter of authorization or the contract. THE RESULTANT CONTRACTOR IS HEREBY FOREWARNED THAT, ABSENT THE REQUISITE AUTHORITY OF THE AR/CO TO MAKE ANY SUCH CHANGES, IT MAY BE HELD FULLY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY CHANGES NOT AUTHORIZED IN ADVANCE, IN WRITING, BY THE CONTRACTING OFFICER, MAY BE DENIED COMPENSATION OR OTHER RELIEF FOR ANY ADDITIONAL WORK PERFORMED THAT IS NOT SO AUTHORIZED, AND MAY ALSO BE REQUIRED, AT NO ADDITIONAL COST TO THE GOVERNMENT, TO TAKE ALL CORRECTIVE ACTION NECESSITATED BY REASON OF THE UNAUTHORIZED CHANGES. (xii) FAR clause 52.212-5 Contract Terms and Conditions Required to Implement Statutes or Executive Orders-Commercial Items, applies to this solicitation by reference and proposed subsequent contract as well as the following clauses contained within FAR clause 52.212-5: 52.204-10 Reporting Executive compensation and First-Tier Subcontract Awards; 52.219-6 Notice of Total Small Business Set (15 U.S.C. 644); 52.219-8 Utilization of Small Business Concerns; 52.219-28 Post Award Small Business Program Representation; 52.222-3 Convict Labor; 52.222-19 Child Labor-Cooperation with Authorities and Remedies; 52.222-21 Prohibition of Segregated Facilities; 52.222-26 Equal Opportunity (E.O. 11246); 52.222-35 Equal Opportunity for Veterans (38 U.S.C. 4212); 52.222-36 Affirmative Action for Workers with Disabilities (29 U.S.C. 793); 52.222-37 Employment Reports on Veterans (38 U.S.C. 4212); 52.222-40 Notification of Employee Rights Under the National Labor Relations Act; 52.223-18 Contractor Policy to Ban Text Messaging with Driving; 52.225-13 Restrictions on Certain Foreign Purchases and 52.232-33 Payment by Electronic Funds Transfer-Central Contractor Registration (31 U.S.C. 3332) (xiii) Additional FAR provisions and clauses incorporated by reference and applicable to this solicitation and the proposed subsequent contract are: 52.232-18 Availability of Funds and 52.237-3 Continuity of Services. (xiv) A Defense Priorities and Allocations System (DPAS) assigned rating is not applicable to this acquisition. (xv) Failure to provide any of the above-required CLINs may result in the rejection of your proposal. Full text of all FAR clauses and provisions are available electronically at the following Internet address: (http://www.arnet.gov/far). Proposals shall be in writing and must be signed by an official who is authorized to bind the organization. Email, fax or oral proposals will not be accepted. Questions must be submitted in writing to Myria Carpenter at [email protected]. Written questions must be submitted by 12:00 p.m., Eastern Time on August 14, 2014. Technical proposals shall be submitted with an original and three (3) copies. Price proposals shall be submitted with an original and one (1) copy. Proposals may be sent via courier or overnight delivery before the closing deadline below. Proposals are due to Myria Carpenter, Contract Specialist, Broadcasting Board of Governors, International Broadcasting Bureau, Office of Contracts, 330 C Street, SW, Room 4007B, Washington, DC 20237 before 12:00 p.m., Eastern Time on August 22, 2014. (xvi) Contact: Myria Carpenter, Contract Specialist, email: [email protected] or Facsimile 202-382-7870. All responsible sources may submit an offer that will be considered by the Agency.