How Switzerland’s largest public broadcaster uses interactive content to drive audience engagement
44 million quiz views. 28,510+ years of engagement. One platform.
Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen (SRF) is the German-language division of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG SSR) – Switzerland’s national public broadcaster. SRF reaches millions of viewers and listeners across television, radio, and digital platforms, covering news, sport, culture, and entertainment for Swiss-German audiences.
In December 2023, SRF started using Riddle to add interactive content to their digital output. In 28 months, the results have been remarkable.
Challenge: getting audiences to do more than scroll
Public broadcasters are under real pressure. Audiences expect more than articles and video – they want to participate. At the same time, public service mandates require demonstrable reach and engagement, without resorting to clickbait or aggressive data collection.
SRF needed to create interactive content at scale – quizzes, polls, and knowledge tests that sat alongside their editorial output. It had to be editorially flexible, brand-safe, GDPR- and WCAG 2.1 compliant, and simple enough for newsroom teams to use without calling in developers.
“Riddle gives our producers the creative freedom to build interactive formats the way they want – without the usual technical friction slowing things down.”
– SRF Newsroom / Digital Production Lead
Solution: interactive content built into the editorial workflow
SRF adopted Riddle as their go-to platform for creating and embedding interactive content. Using Riddle’s content builder, their editorial and digital teams have built a significant library of interactive experiences:
| 1,913 Riddles created | 28 months since launch (Dec 2023) |
Riddle content sits across SRF’s editorial output – alongside news stories, sporting events, cultural features, and audience participation formats. The platform is flexible enough that quizzes can be created and published quickly, keeping pace with a busy newsroom.
At an average of roughly 68 new Riddles per month, interactive content at SRF is clearly not a side project – it’s part of the daily editorial mix.
“Working with Riddle is straightforward and fast – and you still get a tremendous amount of creative freedom.”
– SRF Newsroom / Sports Editor
Results: engagement at public broadcasting scale
Here’s what 28 months of Riddle-powered content looks like at SRF:
| Metric | Value | Context |
|---|---|---|
| Riddles created | 1,913 | Interactive content pieces |
| Quiz views | 44.34 million | Total content impressions |
| Quiz starts | 11.61 million | Users who began a Riddle |
| Quiz finishes | 9.01 million | Users who completed a Riddle |
| Completion rate | 78.2% | Finishes / starts |
| Total time spent | 899.3 billion seconds | Approx. 28,510 years |
What the numbers tell us
Engagement depth, not just reach
Of 44.34 million views, 11.61 million turned into quiz starts – a 26.2% start rate. More than one in four users who see a Riddle choose to engage with it. Of those who start, 78.2% finish. People aren’t just clicking in and bouncing – they’re completing the content.
Time on site – the metric that counts
SRF’s audiences have collectively spent over 28,000 years engaging with Riddle content. For a public broadcaster that’s measured on audience engagement rather than ad clicks, that number matters.
SRF’s content mix ranges from quick single-question polls to in-depth multi-question weekly news quizzes and other formats. The blended engagement time across all formats is strong, but the picture gets more interesting when you look at longer-form quiz content specifically:
Multi-question quizzes average 2 minutes 33 seconds of active engagement per start. That’s significant dwell time for a single piece of content – time users spend thinking, answering, and interacting.
The mix works well: quick polls build habits and drive high-volume participation, while longer quizzes deliver the deep dwell time that editorial and audience teams care about most.
Why SRF chose Riddle
As a public broadcaster operating under Swiss and European data protection rules, SRF needed a platform that combined editorial flexibility with solid compliance and reliability:
| ✓ GDPR & data compliance | Fully GDPR-compliant with EU-hosted infrastructure – important for a Swiss public broadcaster handling audience data. |
| ✓ Editorial flexibility | 35+ interactive content formats – quizzes, polls, predictors, ranked lists, and more – all usable without developer support. |
| ✓ Accessibility | Provides the necessary conditions for an accessible experience that is core to SRF’s interactive content products. |
| ✓ Newsroom-friendly workflow | Fast creation and publishing tools that let editorial teams keep up with the news cycle. |
| ✓ Robust analytics | Clear engagement metrics – views, starts, finishes, time spent, device split – giving SRF the data to show audience value. |
| ✓ Scalable infrastructure | Built to handle the traffic of a national broadcaster without slowing down. |
“I really enjoy working with Riddle – it makes creating different quiz formats straightforward, with plenty of flexibility to tailor each one to our needs.”
– SRF Community Management
A core part of SRF’s digital strategy
In 28 months, SRF has gone from trying out interactive content to making it a central part of how they engage audiences digitally. More than 44 million quiz views, a 78% completion rate, and over 28,000 years of audience time tell a clear story: people don’t just want to read and watch – they want to take part.
For other public broadcasters working out how to reach digital-first audiences, SRF’s experience with Riddle shows that interactive content delivers measurable engagement, dwell time, and audience loyalty – the things that matter most in public service media.
Want to see results like SRF?
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