The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) seeks the services of a qualified researcher (“Contractor”) to conduct a study of local public media stations’ education strategies and programs, to assess stations’ needs, capacities, and current strategies. CPB’s objective in commissioning this survey is to inform its strategic planning around station education programs and to share survey outcomes with stations. Contractor must create a brief (approximately 30 questions) survey, in consultation with CPB, that uses branching questions to capture the respective data of public television, public radio, and joint public television/radio licensee stations. There are approximately 160 public television station licensees, including 76 television station licensees that are joint licensees with at least one radio station licensee, and approximately 406 public radio station licensees located throughout the United States. Contractor must also manage the process of data collection, analyze the resulting data, and provide a complete data set to CPB. CPB expects Contractor to provide CPB with a full set of survey findings in an electronic format such as PowerPoint, and to create a publication-quality report with a detailed analysis of the data that CPB may use to share key findings with stations and key stakeholders.
Whereas CPB’s prior surveys focused on television stations, this survey will include public television and radio stations. Because CPB has not previously surveyed public radio stations about their educational strategies, programs, and activities, this survey is intended to provide a baseline that can be updated through future surveys. Contractor must create a branching survey with separate questions as needed to accurately capture the work of both television and radio stations, as well as joint television/radio stations. The survey may also vary in length by type of station; for example, fewer questions may be required to get a baseline of radio stations’ education work compared with collecting data about the educational strategies and programs employed by television stations. Contractor will recommend appropriate methodology to support effective data collection and meaningful survey results for all stations.
In order for this survey to fulfill CPB’s objective, it is important that as many stations respond to the survey as possible, and CPB expects Contractor both to design a survey that is not burdensome for stations to complete and to work with CPB to solicit station buy-in and participation. In addition, the survey must be designed to produce an updated picture of stations’ local educational strategies in today’s fast-changing media environment.