How do public sector tenders like this actually work?
I often look at eTenders and a lot of the time I'm just baffled by how they create these tenders. This one caught my eye today from TG4 so I read through it. The estimated budget they have is €50,000.
Can someone explain to me how these really work? Have they someone already lined up? Do companies quote low and then add extras later? Or maybe my idea of pricing is way off.
Here are the details of what they require plus full support and mantenance:
- New TG4 Player apps across:
- iOS
- Android
- Apple TV
- Android TV
- Samsung TV
- LG TV
- Sony TV
- Amazon Fire TV
- User account systems including:
- Continue watching
- Watch history
- Bookmarks
- Playlists
- Personalisation
- Streaming/video infrastructure integration
- Integration with:
- Brightcove
- Cloudinary
- EBU Peach
- AI features including:
- AI recommendations
- AI subtitles
- AI translations
- AI-generated promotional imagery
- Accessibility AI features
- Rich metadata system:
- Cast
- Crew
- Awards
- Dialects
- Language proficiency
- Related content
- Advanced categorisation
- Accessibility compliance
- Smart TV remote navigation UX
- Cross-device syncing
- Documentation requirements:
- Full source code handover
- Technical documentation
- Deployment documentation
- Architecture documentation
- Publishing and maintaining the apps
- Ongoing support and maintenance
This honestly reads less like “build us an app” and more like “build us a multi-platform streaming ecosystem similar to RTÉ Player / BBC iPlayer / Netflix-lite”.
Maybe I'm completely out of touch, but if an Irish company were genuinely building this properly with:
- TV app support
- streaming expertise
- backend systems
- QA/testing
- accessibility
- DevOps
- maintenance
…I would have thought this was comfortably into the several hundred thousand euro range minimum, if not €1m+ depending on scope and timelines.
Especially the Smart TV side alone. Samsung Tizen and LG webOS development/testing is not trivial.
Genuinely curious how these projects actually work behind the scenes because the €50k figure completely threw me.
link: https://www.etenders.gov.ie/epps/cft/prepareViewCfTWS.do?resourceId=8191959