Provision of Viewing and Audience Appreciation Data Services

Descriptions

S4C is the only Welsh language television channel and one of the UK's five public service television broadcasters. It is an independent broadcasting authority established under the Broadcasting Act 1981, and regulated by the Communications Act 2003 and the Broadcasting Act 1990.S4C provides a broad range of high quality and diverse programming. The channel airs over 115 hours of Welsh language programming each week. In addition to the above the S4C programme content is available to watch live on the S4C website via broadband and the ‘Clic’ catch up service, via the BBC iPlayer and on YouView, Smart TVs, Sky, Freeview and many other platforms.S4C is uniquely funded through a mixture of grant in aid, commercial revenue and licence fee contribution from the BBC. In addition the BBC supplies ten hours a week of programming funded from the licence fee.S4C wishes to appoint a provider to recruit and administer a panel of members of the public to provide estimates of viewing and audience appreciation data in connection with the S4C programmes.The key elements of the services to be provided are:-The recruitment, management and administration of a panel of at least 1,500 adults made up of 750 Welsh speakers and 750 non-Welsh speakers.- All recruitment must be conducted bilingually in Welsh and English, with Welsh at first contact for Welsh speakers.-The panel members shall all be based in Wales, and the geographical and demographic representation of the panel should reflect that of Wales, with weighting to reflect either census populations or BARB Establishment Survey populations (to be discussed).-The delivery to S4C of a weekly survey capturing consumption of S4C programmes (time spent viewing S4C programmes) and the audience’s appreciation of S4C at a channel level as well as individual programme level. The appreciation indices (AI’s) will be scores out of 100, derived from a 10-point scale. S4C may specify specific questions which the successful tender shall include in the weekly survey.-The delivery to S4C of a general cross-channel appreciation survey once a month (channel appreciation score – up to 10 channels)-The delivery to S4C of a report regarding responses of the panel to supplementary questions once a month. S4C shall nominate the supplementary questions which shall be limited to 3 topics per month.-Each member of the panel shall be contacted bilingually or in the language of their choice, Welsh or English, and all communication & documentation shall be bilingual or in the language of the panellist’s choice.-Surveys shall be conducted in accordance with MRS best practice, no more than 70% shall be conducted online with at least 30% conducted by post.-All panel members shall be 16 years old or older and shall exclude individuals working in the media industry in Wales.-The successful tenderer shall ensure that at least one full time member of staff is a Welsh speaker to provide Welsh language services and deal with any questions or queries from panel members.-The organisation providing the service must abide by the MRS Code of Conduct in relation to the provision of these services to S4C.