Swiss Public Broadcaster Launching National Streamer

Swiss public broadcaster SRG is launching a national streaming platform, Play Suisse, this November.

The project previously operated under the name Rio. The new platform will offer multilingual content from all language regions. All content is available in the original language with subtitles in German, French and Italian, and selected titles are also available in Romansh.

The new platform is not meant to replace the players of the business units—Play RSI, Play RTR, Play RTS, Play SRF and Play SWI)—which have a regional focus and a broadcast component, including sports and news. Rather, Play Suisse offers a curated selection of in-house and co-productions by the business units, covering films, series, documentaries, reports and archives.

“Even though the final choice of name is very obvious, the discussion about numerous options was very intense,” said Bakel Walden, director of development and offering and head of the SRG Digital Board. “With Play Suisse we can now further develop a platform that has a recognizable connection to our current digital offering and at the same time focuses on the whole of Switzerland. In addition, the name Play Suisse leaves scope for cooperation with external partners.”

“We are on track, even if there is still a lot to do before [it goes live],” added Pierre-Adrian Irlé, project manager at Play Suisse. “Last week we launched the Minimum Viable Product (MVP), which is now being tested by 50 internal people.”