The BBC intends to commence a procurement for the provision of a service and system enabling the creation of high quality weather forecasts for UK (both national and regional) and global output.
The BBC would like to ascertain market interest, and obtain expressions of interest from those suppliers who wish to partake in any future procurement. Suppliers should clearly identify which of the Lots (either one or both) are of interest.
This PIN contains details of the BBC's prospective requirements, as far as they are known at this time. It also identifies the likely lotting structure of any future procurement. The final detail of any procurement will be confirmed within any future Contract Notice(s) and Tender documentation.
The BBC reserves the right not to procure all or part of the services listed and to change the scope for the potential services.
The remainder of this PIN provides:
A brief overview of the BBC and BBC Weather
A high-level description of the BBC's editorial vision for the way in which weather information will be presented to its viewers, listeners and licence fee payers using other BBC services such as online.
Lotting Structure
Overview of the BBC:
The BBC is the largest public service broadcasting organisation in the world with a mission to enrich people's lives with programmes which inform, educate and entertain. In any given week, 80% of the UK adult population tunes into BBC News and Weather content across all our platforms. This rises to 90 % when significant stories are taking place. Globally the reach of BBC News and Weather is estimated at 239 million homes and other venues.
The BBC provides services including 10 national TV channels plus regional programming, 10 national radio stations, 40 local radio stations and an extensive website. The latest information about the BBC is available on
http://www.bbc.co.uk/info
BBC Weather, part of BBC News, is a world leader in the provision of weather broadcasting in terms of both graphical and editorial standards. BBC Weather delivers local, national and global weather from the UK using a team in London for UK national and global output and locally based staff for regional UK output. This service operates 365 days a year, 24 hours a day and delivers over 400 weather broadcasts a day.
It provides outstanding original, multi-platform (on Radio, TV and online platforms) weather journalism using imaginative and innovative story-telling and production techniques.
BBC Weather currently receives data feeds which are ingested into a powerful graphical creation and presentation tool. This combination allows forecasters to create market leading, compelling and easy to understand forecast bulletins for broadcast TV. This same data and forecast briefings are used to create bulletins for radio and the various online platforms with the aim of giving as consistent a forecast as possible regardless of the format in which a viewer chooses to access weather information.
BBC Weather – Vision:
BBC Weather is the leading provider of forecast information in the UK, from local to national level and on a variety of platforms. Weather output is very highly valued by the UK audience and is a successful thread running through BBC output, particularly news, but growing in other programme areas. Opportunities also exist for innovation and development to serve our global audiences in a more sophisticated and relevant manner.
The overarching aim for the BBC is to maintain and enhance its UK position as the leading destination for weather information whilst improving the service available to global audiences. This is founded on a reputation for accuracy, availability, distinctive and innovative, quality content across all major platforms. The BBC expects to be able to adapt to technologies not yet known and developed.
The provision of information and the ability to access it will continue to evolve and the BBC expects to be able to exploit relevant changes as they occur. Advances are likely to appear from multiple, disparate, sources and the BBC is looking for potentially new ways of working across the market as it seeks to provide its output across multiple developing platforms and delivery channels.
It is envisaged that the future procurement will be structured across 2 Lots. As a guiding principle vendors should consider these only as a broad and general indication of requirements.
Lot One - Weather Production Systems, (WPS). A software system used to process the weather data feed and create graphics and weather shows for the various BBC outlets.
The BBC's weather graphics should have a distinctive look and feel that differentiates its output from its competitors, whilst remaining consistent with the BBC News brand.
Weather graphics must be easily understandable to the viewer and convey meaning ‘at a glance'.
For global locations, it is desirable to have enhanced visualisation of global cities.
The visualisation component may include advancements in technology – for example 3D graphics and graphics for Virtual Reality Studios.
Lot Two - Weather Services (WS) comprising the weather data feed, forecasting (including briefing of on air broadcasters) and network presentation (weather forecasters) plus two presenters in the nations.
Provision of reliable, accurate data, with a high level of integrity.
Next Steps
Suppliers who wish to express an interest are required to do so via email to the address in this notice. Interested suppliers are required to submit a short summary of the company and experience. This should contain company information, web addresses, a point of contact and the summary of experience should be no longer than 500 words.
Suppliers should make clear the Lot (s) that they are interested in participating in the tender exercise for.
The closing date for expressions of interest is midday 30.6.2014.
Lots
This contract is divided into lots: yes