Skip to main content
Answered

Not being able to listen/ stream South African radio stations in the United Kingdom?

  • January 25, 2026
  • 5 replies
  • 73 views
I

I changed my email and logged in with my wife’s, for 10 days I listened to any South African radio station. A week back out of the blue I was unable to stream anything but uk stations excluding all other international radio stations. So please do not tell me it is not blocked by Sonos. I have 5 speakers on the Sonos 2 controller standing there like white elephants. Why can google stream foreign radio stations, and not sonos. We invested large sum of money in systems that are useless. Why are the international facilities available but not functional?

I spent 4 hours on a live chat to US yesterday just to finally tell me I need to call UK they will look into it?

Best answer by nik9669a

my Tuner Radio,Tuner in, sonos radio you name it I have tried it. Why was  i able to use it for 10 days when I changed my email and the next day it was gone. Why does Sonos offer you all these international radio stations if you can only listen to UK stations. In the EU you can listen to everything,  in UK only Local radio stations. I have family in the Netherlands there i was able to tune in to whatever I wanted. Sonos UK should not be offering if they can't deliver. Empty promises.

Since this is a user forum, I’m not sure we can provide accurate answers to your questions. You need to speak to Sonos. 

5 replies

Airgetlam
  • Airgetlam
  • January 25, 2026

Sonos (and the services they use to send you content) have to honor laws about broadcasting content across international borders, and copyright issues. It’s possible (and likely) that your South African radio stations are geo-blocked. Neither Sonos, or any service providers I’m familiar with have dispensation to ignore all those laws, but I’ve not looked into it in years, since I was working on copyright laws for music in a game many years ago. 

What service are you using?

Bruce
I
  • Iandj
  • Author
  • Contributor I
  • January 25, 2026

my Tuner Radio,Tuner in, sonos radio you name it I have tried it. Why was  i able to use it for 10 days when I changed my email and the next day it was gone. Why does Sonos offer you all these international radio stations if you can only listen to UK stations. In the EU you can listen to everything,  in UK only Local radio stations. I have family in the Netherlands there i was able to tune in to whatever I wanted. Sonos UK should not be offering if they can't deliver. Empty promises.

N
Forum|alt.badge.img+19
  • nik9669a
  • Senior Virtuoso
  • Answer
  • January 25, 2026

my Tuner Radio,Tuner in, sonos radio you name it I have tried it. Why was  i able to use it for 10 days when I changed my email and the next day it was gone. Why does Sonos offer you all these international radio stations if you can only listen to UK stations. In the EU you can listen to everything,  in UK only Local radio stations. I have family in the Netherlands there i was able to tune in to whatever I wanted. Sonos UK should not be offering if they can't deliver. Empty promises.

Since this is a user forum, I’m not sure we can provide accurate answers to your questions. You need to speak to Sonos. 

    106rallye
    Forum|alt.badge.img+18
    • 106rallye
    • January 26, 2026

    ​@LandJ Maybe something happened between the UK and the EU? What exactly does Sonos UK offer regarding international radio stations to make you state they do not deliver on promises?

    It used to be possible though to (temporarily) change your country of residence in your profile on the Sonos website and listen to music from other countries. Not sure if this still works or if a temporary change will be enough to escape the geolocation for TuneIn. But that is how I am still able to listen to BBC Sounds from continental Europe.

    Airgetlam
    • Airgetlam
    • January 26, 2026

    I think that depends on how each service ‘detects’ location. If they rely only on Sonos reporting, that should work. If they rely on other methods for geo-locking, it probably won’t change things. 

    I think Sonos feeds a lot of their stations on Sonos Radio using TuneIn. I’ve no longer got an ‘in’ to TuneIn, so I don’t know how TuneIn works these days with geo-blocked content. I do know, or think, that Sonos filters what they show you when adding services in the controller based on the location you’ve indicated in your account. I don’t know if all services would work, though, I suspect it might have a lot to do with the method of detection used by each service.

    Bruce
    Terms & ConditionsCookie settingsAccessibility statement