News from BBC regarding BBC Sounds and Shoutcast streams

  • 3 November 2022
  • 64 replies
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S
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This would likely apply only to the UK … unless you use a vpn to get BBC Sounds on Sonos.  

Currently in the USA you can listen to the BBC Radio stations via TuneIn.

And not sure that BBC Sounds in the UK on Sonos uses Shoutcast…. but thought i would post it for general information

I heard the announcement today after a news program. 

the link below is on the BBC website 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/help/questions/recent-changes-to-bbc-sounds/shoutcast-closure

 

The BBC uses several streaming technologies to deliver BBC Sounds. If you are hearing a message informing of this change, you are listening using Shoutcast. The BBC will stop supporting Shoutcast by mid-2023. 

Why are we making these changes? 

Shoutcast is an older streaming technology and many connected radio devices in the UK no longer use it. Ending support for Shoutcast will enable us to focus on the two most popular technologies currently used – HLS and DASH. As well as delivering better value, it will allow us to understand more on how our content is consumed. This forms part of our strategy for BBC Sounds and is important to help us improve the services we offer to our listeners.  

We informed manufacturers and other service providers of this change in May 2022. 

I hear the message – what should I do? 

If you are using an internet radio or smart speaker, please contact the manufacturer. It might be possible for the device to be updated to use another of our supported streams.  

If you can hear the message when listening to BBC services via the web or mobile phone, please listen on BBC Sounds instead. 

Other ways to listen to BBC Sounds on a Hi-Fi 

There are multiple ways to listen to BBC Sounds on your Hi-Fi. If you hear the message when listening on your Hi-Fi, please contact your manufacturer. Additionally, you might find our FAQ useful – How can I get BBC Sounds on my Hi-Fi?

 

 

 

Corry P 1 year ago

Hi All

I have an update:

The BBC are making changes to the way they distribute BBC radio services.  We recommend that if you are listening in the UK you add the BBC Sounds content service to your Sonos app for continued uninterrupted listening. If you are not in the UK we recommend you install the BBC Sounds app on your mobile and cast to your Sonos device. For further information please see here https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/help/questions/recent-changes-to-bbc-sounds/shoutcast-closure

The BBC are removing all of their content from TuneIn (and therefore Sonos Radio) in mid-2023 - although they are switching to different technologies, they are not doing so on TuneIn, which contradicts the assumption I now realise I made. My apologies for any confusion. 

To be clear, if you are outside the UK, then the only ways to play BBC content will be through the BBC Sounds app for your smartphone or tablet - this can then be sent to Sonos via AirPlay, Bluetooth or Line-In, if you have compatible players - or with the Alexa BBC Sounds skill which will also work, and play on Sonos, but multiroom playback will not be supported.

UK listeners should add BBC Sounds to their Sonos system.

I realise this will not be what many of you wanted to hear, but I can only recommend feeding back to the BBC - this is not under our control.

 

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Southern Gal
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64 replies

Corry P
Userlevel 7
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Hi @southern gal 

Thanks for sharing the info you found!

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
A

i got this message during a song on BBC radio 2 this morning. i play via mytuner service on Sonos. What does this mean for me?

S
Userlevel 3
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Corry 

Please pass this information up the chain to a manager - 

It would seem that Sonos would be interested in researching this since it's extremely likely that there is a significant audience for BBC Radio stations OUTSIDE of the UK.   

Why wait to find out what is going to happen? 

Certainly someone at SONOS has a liaison with someone at the BBC? 

If not you should.  

Your company sells millions of units and thats millions of customers who potentially will not have access to the BBC.

There is plenty of time to be proactive 

 

Southern Gal
C
Userlevel 6
Badge +11

Use BBC Sounds service instead of TuneIn?

 

B

I heard this message while listening to bbc radio 6 via tunein in Singapore. It would be a big shame if I am cut off from the bbc in this way. 

J

i got this message during a song on BBC radio 2 this morning. i play via mytuner service on Sonos. What does this mean for me?

Do you live in the UK?  

Corry P
Userlevel 7
Badge +18

Hi @southern gal & @Andyneouk1 

Ah - I understand now. Apologies for any confusion. To keep the thread marginally readable, I’ve removed my earlier posts.

The ShoutCast streaming protocol that the BBC are using on TuneIn (Sonos Radio get’s it’s radio URLs from TuneIn so is also affected) and myTuner will soon be changed to the HLS protocol instead. As we already support HLS streaming, this shouldn’t be a problem, though after the change-over you may need to refresh (delete and re-create) any favourites to BBC stations you’ve made in the My Sonos section of the app. You will not need to add a new service to your Sonos system to continue listening to BBC stations, as I previously stated. Many non-BBC stations available on Sonos already utilise the HLS streaming protocol.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
J

This is my understanding of the situation.  My understanding may be imperfect, so I am open to correction.

  1.  The BBC Sounds app is available and can be installed on computers and mobile devices worldwide.  (I don’t know if it is available to every country in the world, but ‘worldwide’ will do.  It is certainly available in the USA.)
  2. This means you have access to live BBC radio and to BBC Sounds’ on demand content, to play on your PC, mobile phone etc.
  3. So one consequence of the previous point is that if you have Sonos speakers that are Airplay or Bluetooth compatible you can already listen to all this on your Sonos speakers, wherever in the world you are.  No reason for that to change.
  4. Prior to 13 April 2022, it was possible to listen to live BBC radio on Sonos using TuneIn, Sonos Radio and other radio services.  From 13 April 2022 that stopped being possible in the UK, but remained the way to listen to live BBC Radio on Sonos outside the UK. 
  5. In the UK, we got an integration into Sonos of BBC Sounds - bringing a different way to listen to live BBC radio, and full access to the BBC Sounds on demand content for the first time.  (Previously you could pick up some shows by searching on Podcasts and Shows.) 
  6. Why just the UK?  I would stake my life savings on this being a BBC restriction, related to the BBC’s hunger for listening data and to data protection issues.  (This is the main driver for the BBC pulling out of the consolidator services’ apps and insisting that digital listening is through the BBC Sounds app.)

So what does the latest announcement mean for non-UK Sonos users who want to continue to listen to BBC Radio after the change just announced?  I don’t really know.  Possibly Sonos could agree with the BBC that the integrated Sonos BBC Sounds service could be made available in at least some other countries.  I suspect that might not be as easy as it sounds, for data reasons.

Or maybe it doesn’t matter, because there will be consolidator services not using Shoutcast, and Sonos already supports HLS.  If you are hearing that BBC message you may just need to use a different service.  I am not sure that Sonos will need to do anything.  Of course, that only relates to live BBC radio outside the UK, but that is not a change.

Anyone have a different view?

Edit: posted this before seeing @Corry P ‘s post.  Not sure all this background is really needed, but I’ll leave it now I’ve written it.

S
Userlevel 3
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Thank you for confirming about HLS Streaming on SONOS.  I had hoped that it was in place already. 

As an avid USA resident listener of BBC Radio stations, this is very good news!  

Thanks for your reply 

 

Southern Gal
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This assistance, for which thank you, begs the question, how to set up HLS Streaming on SONOS?

 

I live in Hong Kong so need the BBC!

J

Hi. You should not have to set anything up. The BBC streams in HLS and Sonos happily plays it.

U
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Hi. You should not have to set anything up. The BBC streams in HLS and Sonos happily plays it.

It would be nice to lose the frequent BBC warning messages in the short term.  So I guess this needs action in the Sonos Radio service by Sonos to switch to HLS.  Unless there are any other routes for the user to set up HLS streams manually.

J

Hi. You should not have to set anything up. The BBC streams in HLS and Sonos happily plays it.

It would be nice to lose the frequent BBC warning messages in the short term.  So I guess this needs action in the Sonos Radio service by Sonos to switch to HLS.  Unless there are any other routes for the user to set up HLS streams manually.

I don’t think you have understood the situation here.  The service provider sends a stream.  If  if is in a format Sonos can play, Sonos will play it.  Sonos supports HLS and so will play a stream sent in HLS.  It cannot make an unplayable stream playable.  At the moment that also means it cannot make a stream sent with the warning into a stream without the warning.

Edit: by the time the change is actually implemented I imagine all the radio consolidators would be sending HLS streams or other compatible format to Sonos.

J

There may be other radio consolidators on Sonos that already serve up an HLS stream for the BBC.

Another way is to add the HLS streaming URLs manually to Sonos.  The process is described here:

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/add-an-internet-radio-station-to-sonos

The HLS streams are listed here:

https://gist.github.com/bpsib/67089b959e4fa898af69fea59ad74bc3

For example, for BBC Radio 1 add:

http://a.files.bbci.co.uk/media/live/manifesto/audio/simulcast/hls/uk/sbr_med/ak/bbc_radio_one.m3u8

Airgetlam

And yes, while it would be nice to lose the BBC warning messages, that is content controlled by the BBC, so they’d need to stop including it in the stream that they provide to others. 

Bruce
U
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Thanks @John B that is what I was looking for.  I have been able to add BBC HLS (but not DASH) to TuneIn manually - I didn’t realise that you could do that.  I assume that this will get round the BBC messages, as I’ve understood that these only related to the Shoutcast service @Airgetlam.

My joy was shortlived however: I was then reminded that TuneIn doesn’t work with Sonos Voice Assistant, which I use a lot to switch stations.

So… it would still be nice to have the Sonos Radio service updated to non-obsolete BBC streams so I can have warning-message-free BBC content and voice control.

J

So… it would still be nice to have the Sonos Radio service updated to non-obsolete BBC streams so I can have warning-message-free BBC content and voice control.

You still don’t seem to have got it.  The BBC’s Shoutcast streams contain the message.  Their HLS streams don’t.  So if the radio service sends a Shoutcast stream to Sonos, the message will play.  There is nothing Sonos can do about this.  What needs to happen is that the radio service needs to start sending an HLS stream instead. If they do that now the message will disappear.

There is nothing Sonos can do about this,  So I beg you, PLEASE stop repeating your meaningless and impossible  request for Sonos to do something.

J

I was then reminded that TuneIn doesn’t work with Sonos Voice Assistant, which I use a lot to switch stations.

 

Even if it did work, it would not work with these manually added streams.

M

Hi @southern gal & @Andyneouk1 

Ah - I understand now. Apologies for any confusion. To keep the thread marginally readable, I’ve removed my earlier posts.

The ShoutCast streaming protocol that the BBC are using on TuneIn (Sonos Radio get’s it’s radio URLs from TuneIn so is also affected) and myTuner will soon be changed to the HLS protocol instead. As we already support HLS streaming, this shouldn’t be a problem, though after the change-over you may need to refresh (delete and re-create) any favourites to BBC stations you’ve made in the My Sonos section of the app. You will not need to add a new service to your Sonos system to continue listening to BBC stations, as I previously stated. Many non-BBC stations available on Sonos already utilise the HLS streaming protocol.

are there any plans to extend BBC Sounds support to non-UK Sonos customers? I can freely access BBC sounds on my android phone, and it would be nice to just switch the audio output from my BT Headphones to my Sonos when i get home.

Corry P
Userlevel 7
Badge +18

Hi @mifrho 

That would be entirely up to the BBC. Considering the changes they’ve been making recently regarding who can access what from where, I personally think it unlikely.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
I
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I tried the Links from John B’s Post above, and realised the links were for teh UK streams, so didn’t work for me (you can see “UK” is mentioned in the url.

 

This page contains the links to the Worldwide streams (“nonuk” is in the URLs)
https://en.everybodywiki.com/List_of_BBC_radio_stream_URLs

So BBC Radio 1 is: http://a.files.bbci.co.uk/media/live/manifesto/audio/simulcast/hls/nonuk/sbr_low/ak/bbc_radio_one.m3u8
 

Rather than John’s link of http://a.files.bbci.co.uk/media/live/manifesto/audio/simulcast/hls/uk/sbr_med/ak/bbc_radio_one.m3u8

sbr_Low (96 Kbps) is the highest they go for non-uk streams

 

Thx John for the pointer though.

J

I tried the Links from John B’s Post above, and realised the links were for teh UK streams, so didn’t work for me (you can see “UK” is mentioned in the url.

 

This page contains the links to the Worldwide streams (“nonuk” is in the URLs)
https://en.everybodywiki.com/List_of_BBC_radio_stream_URLs

So BBC Radio 1 is: http://a.files.bbci.co.uk/media/live/manifesto/audio/simulcast/hls/nonuk/sbr_low/ak/bbc_radio_one.m3u8
 

Rather than John’s link of http://a.files.bbci.co.uk/media/live/manifesto/audio/simulcast/hls/uk/sbr_med/ak/bbc_radio_one.m3u8

sbr_Low (96 Kbps) is the highest they go for non-uk streams

 

Thx John for the pointer though.

And thanks for tracking down the non-UK streams and posting them here.

J

Hi,

Just found this on the BBC site, I haven’t heard the pre-recorded message… yet. Unfortunately this doesn’t restore voice assistant control. 
 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/help/questions/listening-on-a-smart-speaker/sonos

 

Regards,

JayWorm

Corry P
Userlevel 7
Badge +18

Hi All

I have an update:

The BBC are making changes to the way they distribute BBC radio services.  We recommend that if you are listening in the UK you add the BBC Sounds content service to your Sonos app for continued uninterrupted listening. If you are not in the UK we recommend you install the BBC Sounds app on your mobile and cast to your Sonos device. For further information please see here https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/help/questions/recent-changes-to-bbc-sounds/shoutcast-closure

The BBC are removing all of their content from TuneIn (and therefore Sonos Radio) in mid-2023 - although they are switching to different technologies, they are not doing so on TuneIn, which contradicts the assumption I now realise I made. My apologies for any confusion. 

To be clear, if you are outside the UK, then the only ways to play BBC content will be through the BBC Sounds app for your smartphone or tablet - this can then be sent to Sonos via AirPlay, Bluetooth or Line-In, if you have compatible players - or with the Alexa BBC Sounds skill which will also work, and play on Sonos, but multiroom playback will not be supported.

UK listeners should add BBC Sounds to their Sonos system.

I realise this will not be what many of you wanted to hear, but I can only recommend feeding back to the BBC - this is not under our control.

 

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
Airgetlam

May I suggest pinning this information?

;)

Bruce
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