Sonos & Pocketcast

Give an example then somebody could check

Some examples of this is that I cannot connect podcasts from The Daily Wire…such as Ben Shapiro, Michael Knowles, and Matt Walsh specifically. Also can’t connect The Dan Bongino Show podcast from Cumulus. These are subscribed through Pocket Casts. Interestingly I can connect and listen to the news show podcast The Daily Wire from The Daily Wire on my Sonos speaker system through Pocket Cast. This leads me to believe that certain podcasts have been censored by Sonos.

I've checked... Despite my misgivings about the nature of these podcasts.  

I can add them in Pocket Casts itself.  They fail to appear in the Sonos service. 

However, I also added a BBC podcast series and this also fails to appear in Sonos. 

So, there's no conspiracy to censor podcasts, rather a typical cock up in programming. 

Try reporting the problem to Pocket Casts first.   

I'll raise the same issue with the BBC series.   BUT read below... 

EDIT:

Hang on.... I just unsubscribed the Michel Knowles podcast.  I then checked the Sonos service... and the BBC podcast appeared in the list! 

So, you may be correct in suspecting some subtle censorship. 

I'll leave it to you to follow this up. 

Thanks for your message. So who should I contact @ Sonos about this?

Hi Bruce thanks. Are you a Sonos tech support employee? I’ve emailed the CEO Patrick Spence who has already responded back to me and saying he would send to Sonos Technical Support. 

Thanks  for your response.

Almost certainly not the actual Patrick Spence, probably a low level media person.  Bruce is correct, the music services are responsible for what data is displayed and how the app displays it. 

And no, I am not a Sonos employee, they’re required to have that designation on their forum profile.

And thank you, @jgatie ;)

For the record, this is a ‘community’ site, Sonos support does not visit here. In general, the only Sonos employees who post here are Forum Moderators, many (all?) of whom have worked in support in the past, and are quite knowledgeable. But there are few of them, and their priority is Forum Moderation, not Sonos Support. 

Thanks for your input guys. This is my first time using this site.

Regards,

Randy

The Dan Bongino show was working just Fine until February 2nd,  Very frustrating it just stopped.  Reinstalled everything with no luck….

It does feel as though a show in the top 20 Podcasts was just shut down by Sonos….I agree with the OP.

I agree w OP. Having the same issues. This is suspect and I will not buy anymore sonos products until I receive some clarity on this issue 

Me too.  

Get the Dan Bongino show back on Sonos….Its on Amazon, Iheart, but cancelled from Sonos...Pfft cmon guys.

Having the same issue…. Ben Shapiro and Dan Bongino podcasts.  Cannot play thru sonos app with Pocketcast, tunes, Heart, or sonos radio, although podcasts are listed. Can play on iPhone using tune in, pocketcast or iheart apps.  Started around beginning of february

That’s odd, if they are listed in the Sonos controller’s list from a  streaming company. Have you submitted a system diagnostic within 10 minutes of experiencing this problem, and called Sonos Support to discuss it?

As I indicated in the other thread, certain podcast series simply don't show in the Sonos Pocket Casts service list.  They are disappeared. 

So, it's difficult to know what to report for diagnostics. 

If they don’t show in what is presented in the Sonos controller, that means that for some reason, the streaming service is withholding it from Sonos users, and the streaming service should be contacted. Sonos would display and play any content they’re handed/supplied via the API on the streaming service’s servers, but if the aren’t provided access to that podcast, Sonos has zero control. 

It's all very strange.... The disappeared podcasts (as far as I can tell) all seem to be reflective of what I'll (politely) call the radical right.

It's hard to see why Pocket Casts lists them in the native app but not in the api version. 

I haven't checked whether the same podcasts are also missing from other podcast services via Sonos. 

Those podcasts are listed on other podcast services via Sonos, but will not play “cannot connect to….”. All other shows play a expected.

Sonos doesn’t ‘choose’ what is shown by each streaming company, that’s up to each company themselves. 

This muddies the water even more.... Have you contacted Sonos directly about this?

I tried to play the Bongino show on a different streamer system.  It fails. 

So, maybe the actual podcast stream is in some incompatible format. 

I think your best option is to contact both the cumulus podcast network and sonos. 

Clearly this is a problem on the Sonos side. The podcasts all “show”, they just don’t play. The error says “Unable to play ‘xxx’ - Unable to connect to IHeartRadio” The system has no problem connecting to other IHeartRadio podcasts.

I can make Morning Wire work if I launch through the Spotify or iHeartRadio apps and select the Sonos speakers I want to use, but I cannot play directly from the Sonos app. Really annoying and I suspect some low level twerp with an agenda has deliberately blocked these shows.