Access News Services

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Communications is seeking a vendor that can provide access to international, national, state and local news sources or services, including but not limited to the Associated Press (AP) international, national, state and local wires, Reuters wires including Reuters "Commodities News," AP "AG Alert," AP "Washington Report," Dow Jones Newswire, McClatchy Tribune Business Wire (aka MCT Business Wire), Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, transcripts of American Broadcasting System (ABC), Cable News Network (CNN), Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), FOX network and National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) news stories; vendor's offering must use a web-based platform to provide information retrieval, handling, searching, sorting, republication and storage data of interest to the Government, the Government will be reviewing any additional information handling capabilities they may offer. For the required AP content that the offeror cannot provide through the offeror's agreements with AP, OC will acquire the necessary license from AP and the offeror's offering must allow OC to access the AP content through the offeror's system. An offeror's offering that cannot integrate access to the AP content so that such access is accomplished no differently than the access to the other news and information sources the offeror is providing is not responsive to this solicitation. The vendor must provide for access within two separate time frames: for all news except transcripts of news broadcasts, the news must be made available in (near real time) is defined as within one (1) hour of the information being placed on a wire service or published-broadcast by a news outlet (this requirement is essential); transcripts of news programs must be available no later than four and one-half (41/2) times the length of the program for which the transcript is being prepared. OC's also understands that many news or information sources make available to the public via their Internet web sites only a limited portion of the data that is available if one subscribes or otherwise pays the news or information source a fee. A service that identifies and makes available to OC items retrieved from only the publicly available data (such as that available from a source's "public" or "free" Internet web site) from any of the required news sources identified is not compliant with OC's requirement for access to all news or information that would be available from the site. The contract will be for a base year (from date of contract award thru 9/30/2009) and three (3) option years (10/01/2009 thru 9/30/2012). This contract will be a firm-fixed price. THE SOLICITATION IS NOT CURRENTLY AVAILABLE. The approximate solicitation release date is on or about 8/20/08. The solicitation is available solely through the Federal Business Opportunity web site www.fbo.gov. All future information about this acquisition, including solicitation/amendments will be distributed solely through the web site. The cost portion of the vendor's proposal must be submitted using the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet (this will be explained in the solicitation package. Interested parties must obtain a DUNS number and register with the Central Contractor Registration (CCR) (www.ccr.gov) in order to do business with USDA. This procurement will be conducted in accordance with FAR Part 12, Commercial Items procedures.