Steve Peacock's U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor

U.S. Government: Americans are 'Killer Zombies' (WND)

My latest from WND. -- S.P.

A bloodthirsty zombie version of the Uncle Sam character bites the neck of a foreign man in a promotional video the Obama administration is using to catch the attention of Pakistani youth.

Voice of America, through a local cable company, currently distributes “Zindagi 360,” a program VOA uses to target young adults in Pakistan, but the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors is setting its sights higher.

BBG now is aiming for a Pakistan-wide broadcast of the show, which “focuses on topics that resonate with young people in Pakistan,” such as music and “life in America.”

The topics apparently include the stars-and-stripes-adorned killer-zombie adaptation of Uncle Sam, the traditional personification of the American government.

While the promo clearly is intended to be humorous, if not satirical, BGB is using it as a calling card in its search for a distributor capable of spreading its message.

Continued at WND.com...

Contract for U.S.-Funded Survey of Arab TV Consumption Awarded

Gauging how the Arab world consumes -- or fails to digest -- U.S. government broadcast news is about to cost $110,000 for such an assessment. The Broadcasting Board of Governors recently awarded a contract to the Syracuse, N.Y.-based Strategic Information and Communications Group LLC to carry out the survey, which also will entail an evaluation of overall news viewing, including that of non-U.S. media.

As U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor reported earlier this year, BBG wants to learn whether brand identity drives Middle Easterner choices of news sources; Phase Two will attempt to determine whether BBG's “I am the news. I am Alhurra” promotional campaign was successful. (See: Data on Desires of Middle Eastern TV-News Viewers Sought).

Source document: Contract award #BBG50-P-12-0700.

OTHER BBG COVERAGE:

U.S. Baseball as a Propaganda Tool? (Feb. 17, 2012)

U.S. Seeks Data on Libyan Media Consumption (Nov. 5, 2011)

U.S. Cancels Planned Media Barrage in Pakistan (Nov. 1, 2011)

FOR FURTHER COVERAGE OF INFORMATION-DISSEMINATION ISSUES, SEE THE MONITOR’S PROPAGANDA/PR PAGE.

Data on Desires of Middle Eastern TV-News Viewers Sought

 

Viewer choices of TV news sources in the Middle East—particularly in the aftermath of the Arab Spring—are about to be evaluated by the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors, which also will assess recent promotional efforts for its Alhurra TV operations.

Specific to Middle Eastern consumer preferences, BBG will enlist private-contractor services to obtain answers to the questions:

• To what extent is brand identity a driver of the choice of TV stations for news?
• What are some of the brand identities for TV news audiences view positively? Negatively?
• How do audiences learn about these brands?
• What are some of the differences in preferences by country or demographic groups?
• What is the role of content in shaping perceptions of the TV news brands?
• What is the news and information content audiences are looking for in the wake of the Arab spring?
• Which TV channels do they believe are providing this content? Why?
• To what extent are audiences getting this news from non-TV sources such as the internet, radio, newspapers, etc?
• What attracts them to these sources?

The 2^nd phase of the project will focus on the outcome of its new 30 second TV advertisement campaign, “I am the news. I am Alhurra.” (see YouTube frame above). The goal of that study segment will be to:

examine the identity the advertisement conveys and the extent to which the advertisement promotes an image consistent with audience preferences, along with the implications for future marketing and advertising efforts.

BBG requires the selected contractor to conduct a region-wide assessment, but will consider proposals "to limit the research to Egypt, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia, as long as the offeror submits a regional assessment as well.”

Source document:  Solicitation #BBG50-R-12-0022.

OTHER BBG COVERAGE:

U.S. Baseball as a Propaganda Tool? (Feb. 17, 2012)

U.S. Seeks Data on Libyan Media Consumption (Nov. 5, 2011)

U.S. Cancels Planned Media Barrage in Pakistan (Nov. 1, 2011)

FOR FURTHER COVERAGE OF INFORMATION-DISSEMINATION ISSUES, SEE THE MONITOR’S PROPAGANDA/PR PAGE.

U.S. Baseball as a Propaganda Tool? (Updated)

Radio and television broadcasts of baseball games beamed into Cuba has become the latest brainchild of the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), whose Radio/TV Marti programs will make the cherished American sport available to Cuban citizens for free.

The anticipated sole-source contract that BBG intends to award to Major League Baseball Properties, Inc., comes on the heels of a congressional report questioning the usefulness of such investments of U.S. taxpayer funds into Cuba-targeted programming. Similarly, it also should be noted that, late last year, Radio/TV Marti journalist Manuel Vazquez Portal resigned in protest of the station's alleged over-reliance on entertainment rather than news.

The BBG Special Notice, which U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor located during a routine search of the FedBizOpps contracting database, said yesterday that the agency formally will procure the MLB license within the next 15 days. 

It did not reveal the estimated cost of the endeavor.

***UPDATE (3 p.m. EST): Thanks to a major media news source who contacted U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor seeking additional information about this post (and whose identity will not be revealed for the time being), the Monitor would like to clarify that -- according to that source -- MLB already allows BBG to re-broadcast a limited number of free baseball games, including the World Series, to Cuba. Upon release of further details about the anticipated new broadcasting license the Monitor will offer a follow-up post specifying the scope of the "new" arrangement.

Source document: Solicitation #BBGCON021612-MC

FOR ADDITIONAL COVERAGE OF THE BROADCASTING BOARD OF GOVERNORS, PLEASE SEE THE MONITOR'S BBG PAGE.

FOR FURTHER COVERAGE OF INFORMATION-DISSEMINATION ISSUES, SEE THE MONITOR’S PROPAGANDA/PR PAGE.

U.S. Seeks Data on Libyan Media Consumption

The U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) last month awarded a $100,000 contract to a British research firm to assess media use in Libya. According to a contract award (#BBG50-C-11-0073) located during a routine search of the FedBizOpps database, Oxford Research International will conduct phone surveys to detemine the audience size of Alhurra, BBG's Arabic language television channel, as well as Radio Sawa, its Arabic radio service.

Oxford likewise will attempt to obtain data on "general patterns of media use" and "views on various social and political questions may be included in the survey," according to the Request for Proposals in Solicitation #BBG50-R-11-0023.

FOR ADDITIONAL COVERAGE OF THE BROADCASTING BOARD OF GOVERNORS, PLEASE SEE THE MONITOR'S BBG PAGE.

ALSO SEE THE MONITOR'S LIBYA PAGE.

FOR FURTHER REGIONAL COVERAGE, VISIT OUR MIDDLE EAST PAGE AND AFRICA PAGE. 

ALSO SEE THE MONITO'S PROPAGANDA/PR PAGE.

 

 

U.S. Cancels Planned Media Barrage in Pakistan

A planned project to air U.S.-sponsored broadcast TV news across Pakistan has been cancelled, U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor has discovered.  The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) had anticipated hiring a privately contracted broadcaster to work in tandem with the Voice of America (VOA) to produce a 30-50-minute show in the Urdu language that would have been aired five days a week; BBG, however, in an amendment to Solicitation #BBG50-Q-11-0033 explained the cancellation in one sentence:

This solicitation has been canceled due to a change in the agency requirements.

The BBG/VOA offered no further explanation.

The U.S. Agency for International (USAID) in 2008 had sought to embark upon a similar broadcasting endeavor in Pakistan, but it remains unclear whether the agency ever fully pursued that plan. As reported by the Monitor's predecessor site The Peacock Report (TPR), USAID envisioned "a multi-language delivery of U.S. government messages in urban as well as rural areas of Pakistan... in English, Urdu, Pashtu, Punjabi, and other regonal languages... in newspapers, magazines, and billboards as well as radio and television broadcasts..."

Though a recent search of the FedBizOpps database did not produce any evidence that USAID actually awarded contracts to carry out that ambitious initiative, neither did a search reveal a cancellation of that project.  (See "U.S. Information Blitz to Unfold in Pakistan"; TPR, June 5, 2008).

U.S. Seeks New Means of Predicting Internet Growth Overseas, from Albania to Zimbabwe

The U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) is looking for a contractor capable of developing a new analytical model to predict Internet usage and growth in thirty-two foreign nations, from "A" (Albania) to "Z" (Zimbabwe).

The agency, which runs U.S. government-funded international broadcasting systems such as Voice of America and Radio Sawa and Alhurra Television of the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, said in a Statement of Work (Solicitation #BBG50-R-11-0020) that existing models for predicting growth are inadequate. The SOW said those models solely focus on specific technology sectors rather than the Internet in its entirety:

The ultimate goal is to estimate, using empirical data, the expansion of the number of unique individuals using the Internet on a weekly basis in these markets over the next five years. While various organizations have produced such estimates and prejections for sub-segments of the Internet market, such as mobile Internet use or fixed line broadband, BBG requires estimates of the growth of the entire Internet market, regardless of platform, including use via public access facilities.

Although the BBG attempted to justifiy why it wants a new predictive model, it did not specify why it needs -- nor what it intends to do -- with such a new mode of analysis. The agency said it would apply the model to Internet usage in the following nations: Afghanistan, Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Cameroon, China, Egypt, Georgia, Ghana, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Syria, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, Vietnam,  Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

The BBG said the selected contractor should be able to complete the work within an eight-week period. It did not offer an estimated cost of the project.