Studio Equipment Program

For over 20 years, the Met Office, through UK contributions to the World Meteorological Organization's Voluntary Cooperation Programme (UK VCP), has worked with the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHS) of over 40 developing countries, mainly in Africa, to enable them to supply TV Weather Presentations to their TV companies. This is a very high-profile service which is immediately visible to decision makers, as well as to a significant proportion of the population, and is usually broadcast before or after the main national news programmes. It is a very important delivery channel in providing warnings of high-impact weather events.

In most cases, we provided the NMHS with a small studio, set up specially to do the weather presentation. Compared to a conventional TV studio, it is typically much smaller and simpler. We have also provided a specific graphics package free of charge to the developing country NMHS. We also provide training in the skills required to use the equipment, prepare the graphics and to make the presentations.

The requirement is focussed on the procurement and testing of the studio hardware (the Met Office will manage the graphics software 'in-house'). We have already tested and developed a cost-effective new hardware solution using new technology that now enables broadcasts in both High Definition and widescreen. This solution uses 'off-the-shelf' components.

The Met Office would like the supplier to:

• Procure the set list of hardware equipment for us (see Appendix A Set List of Hardware Equipment). Please note that all interconnecting cables shown in the schematic Appendix B should be supplied as part of any tender response.

• Assemble hardware equipment at their own premises to test everything works correctly, label all cabling and equipment appropriately e.g. in/out/colored labelling (see Appendix B Schematic). Please note that all diagrams and instructions are to be technically simple;

• repack hardware equipment in a suitable and safe manner;

• Dispatch hardware equipment (either to the Met Office in Exeter, or to FCO Services in Milton Keynes, or directly to the developing country depending on the most appropriate solution, which would be discussed with and confirmed by the Met Office).

The studio installations would usually be completed in the developing country by one of our VCP team or our 'in-country' media experts, however, the supplier may also on occasion need to provide the installation and training in the developing country.

The contract will run for a period of 3 years from commencement with annual performance reviews.

Anticipated volumes of work:

There are potentially about 35 developing countries which we would like to provide with new studios, mainly in Africa. However, there is limited budget to cover this and limited staff resource for installation and training workshops (and for planning the logistics of those events). Therefore we are looking at aiming for 10-20 equip