RTÉ International News Agency Services

AI-generated analysis of the documents. Check the official notice and any amendments for current submission details.

1. At a glance

2. Scope of Work

RTÉ seeks international news agency services to support its television, radio, online, social, audio, mobile, archive, and future digital platforms. This is a repeat procurement for services previously acquired under other contracts. The successful tenderer will provide comprehensive news content and related services to RTÉ.

The scope of work encompasses the provision of international news agency services, detailed in Appendix 1 (The Specification). Key activities and requirements include:

• Content Provision: Supplying news material relevant to RTÉ's values and priorities, including breaking news, conflict, and crisis reporting. This involves the authentication and verification of content.
• Global Presence: Demonstrating a global network of bureaux, correspondents, staff, and freelancers.
• Freelancer Vetting: Implementing procedures for vetting freelancers, particularly in divisive news environments, to ensure impartiality.
• Regional and Technical Resources: Providing access to regional resources such as studios, cameras, and bonded technology.
• Coverage Capacity: Ensuring sufficient coverage capacity, content availability, responsiveness, and service quality across specified regions and service areas.
• Technical Design: Offering a proposed solution that meets functional capabilities, quality, resilience, and reliability standards. This includes:
• Interoperability with existing RTÉ systems (editorial, production, newsroom, broadcast).
• Handling and delivery of video, audio, graphics, text, metadata, and associated content.
• Compliance with RTÉ security standards, cybersecurity best practices, and data protection requirements.
• Service availability, performance, scalability, and business continuity arrangements.
• Ease of implementation, migration, and rollout with minimal disruption.
• Monitoring, alerting, and operational management capabilities.
• Support arrangements, including service desk, escalation, fault response times, and service level commitments.
• Account Management and Customer Service: Providing dedicated customer service for technical and editorial issues, support for technology rollout, and regular reporting on RTÉ's usage of the service.
• Value-Added Dimensions and Innovation: Demonstrating proven experience in delivering value-added and innovative solutions, including a proposed licensing model.
• Maintainability, Support & Upgradeability: Ensuring the proposed solution is easily operated, maintained, supported, and enhanced throughout its lifecycle, including management tools, updates, training, and vendor support.
• Resilience, Service Continuity & Vendor Independence: Minimising operational risk through service resilience, disaster recovery, data portability, and avoiding vendor lock-in. This includes clear arrangements for data ownership, transition to alternative providers, and transparency of platform dependencies.
• Environmental Impact: Completing the project, product, or service in an environmentally friendly manner.

The tender requires bidders to demonstrate their capabilities through technical and financial information as set out in Appendix 2 (Tender Requirements).

3. Background & buyer context

Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ) is Ireland's national public service media organisation. In 2026, RTÉ marks 100 years of public service media. It provides television, radio, and online services, aiming to inform, engage, and entertain the nation. RTÉ operates multiple television channels (RTÉ One, RTÉ2, etc.), four primary radio stations (RTÉ Radio 1, 2fm, lyric fm, Raidió na Gaeltachta), and extensive digital services including RTE.ie, RTÉ Player, and YouTube channels. RTÉ Archives maintains a significant audiovisual collection. Saorview, Ireland's free-to-air digital television service, is also owned and managed by RTÉ.

This procurement is for international news agency services, a service RTÉ has previously contracted for. The current tender aims to secure these services to support RTÉ's diverse media platforms. The contract notice was published in the Official Journal of the European Union and on eTenders.

4. Eligibility & selection criteria

Tenderers must satisfy the following minimum requirements to be considered for evaluation. Failure to meet these will result in the tender being disqualified.

• Turnover requirement:
• Minimum turnover of €150,000 for each year of trading if trading for less than 3 years.
• Minimum turnover of €150,000 for each of the three previous financial years if trading for more than 3 years.
• Independently audited financial statements are required, or a self-declaration in the Form of Tender.
• Insurance:
• Product Liability: €6.5M
• Public Liability: €6.5M
• Employer's Liability: €13M
• Details of insurance provider/broker and a letter confirming cover (within the past six months) are required, or confirmation that cover will be in place upon award. A self-declaration in the Form of Tender is also acceptable.
• Certifications:
• Quality Assurance: Tenderers must demonstrate satisfactory quality assurance procedures, including external accreditation (if any) and internal procedures (e.g., SOPs, training manuals).
• Health, Safety and Welfare at Work (HS&W) Assurance: Tenderers must demonstrate satisfactory HS&W assurance procedures, including external accreditation (if any) and internal procedures (e.g., Safety Statements, risk assessments, H&S training logs).
• ISO 27001 is cited in relation to technical design requirements.
• Past experience:
• Demonstrated experience in authenticating and verifying content in breaking news, conflict, crisis, and misinformation-sensitive environments.
• Proven experience in delivering value-added and innovation solutions to customers within the last 12 months.
• Experience in integrating with existing broadcast systems.
• Experience in handling and delivery of video, audio, graphics, text, metadata, and associated content.
• Experience in disaster recovery and business continuity arrangements.
• Personnel: Not specified for this tender.
• Geographic / facility constraints: Not specified for this tender, beyond the requirement for global presence in bureaux and correspondents.

Tenderers may rely on the capacities of other entities, provided they can prove these resources are available to them via an undertaking from that entity.

5. Award criteria & scoring

The contract will be awarded to the tenderer submitting the Most Economically Advantageous Tender (MEAT). Tenders will be evaluated in three stages: Compliance Check, Minimum Requirements assessment, and Evaluation against specific criteria. The MEAT is determined by a composite score out of 100.

Evaluation Criteria Percentage Weighting Sub-criteria