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Contributor I
November 9, 2020

Sonos Tunin Adverts (ads)

  • November 9, 2020
  • 17 replies
  • 1985 views

I have been struggling with Sonos for a while now.

  1. First they stop supporting some of my old gear. Ok, we’ve moved on.
  2. Then Tunin stops  relaying foreign radio stations. That is pretty bad, I hear sonos say “It’s not our fault”; well sonos, my contract is with you, not tunein
  3. Then came sonos radio, it doesn’t give me anything I didn’t have before - I was hoping it would fix above, but no, it doesn’t :(
  4. Alight, so I add my radio stations manually. and there is the cherry on the cake:
  • I have to spend time finding the URL(s), putting them into Sonos - This is irritating: my cousin call me from France last week: “in 5 minutes, list to “France Info” - “No can do (not on sonos anyway), it’ll take me more that 5 minutes to find that url”
  • When you manually add a station, it goes into “Tunin stations” - no idea why, this is beyond me, but I can just about live with this and add them to my sonos - An extra stop, ok.
  • And then, I get adverts. what would appear to be Tunein adverts, on manually added stations that are ad free, also the tunin jingle: the “boom” chord!!!

Now, I have been a customer for over 10 years, spent 1,000’s on sonos products, have loved it pretty much all the way, but what has gone wrong at Sonos lately? Have they lost control?
This is not even funny.
@Sonos, I think you ought to fix this. I am not a happy bunny.

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17 replies

Smilja
November 9, 2020

You won’t be a happy bunny either, if your favorite station dies tomorrow. Do you think running a radio station does not cost money? That is what the ads are for, covering the costs.

»And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space, Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind.« (›Windmills Of Your Mind‹ [1967]. Music by Michel Legrand ; English lyrics written by Alan & Marilyn Bergman)
Contributor I
November 9, 2020

Smilja,

Thanks for your reply.

I forgot to highlight a very crucial point: if I listen to the stream outside of sonos, there aren’t any ads, weather using the station’s app, or the url stream in a web browser.
I understand that it costs to run a radio station, but this argument is out of scope in this thread.
Thanks.

controlav
Lead Maestro
November 10, 2020

If you are using a direct stream from the radio station’s web site, I don’t see how TuneIn could possibly have injected ads into it. As you haven’t listed the URL it is not possible to diagnose that further.

Author of the leading independent Sonos apps for Android, MacOS, iOS, Windows and Xbox.
Contributor I
December 15, 2020

Totally agree with Sonos-Used_to_rock.  How to ruin a great product.

I switch on my government funded radio in NL and listen to adverts every half-hour from the radio station and then on top of that, when I turn on the radio station, I have to listen to an advert first!! Am I the product?

I compare it to a conventional radio station, I switch it on and that’s it. Because you can monetize Sonos, it doesn’t mean it is good. Why did this start?

I switch on the radio multiple times a day and sometimes multiple times per hour.  Even writing this down, makes me annoyed. Sonos, stop this!

Lyricist II
March 5, 2021

Same experience here. New user though, I had to “install” a system at the neighbors, liked it a lot so bought myself 2 One SL speakers. But very disappointed to hear advertisement at the beginning of listening to a radio station. I ABSOLUTELY know it is not done by the radio station, because 80s80s radio is a German radio station and I get advertisements in Dutch or French, because I live in Belgium. And I am dutch by motherlanguage and it is very, very, VERY annoying to hear ads in French.

This makes sure I will not buy another Sonos product, even if I do like the quality of the sound and even though I’m also a Spotify customer in which, fortunately, there are no ads injected. I’ve gone looking for a solution and there’s a hint to getting a subscription to the premium TuneIn offer, but that’s not even available in my country….

So if anyone has an idea how to stream without modification by Sonos, please let me know.

melvimbe
March 5, 2021

So if anyone has an idea how to stream without modification by Sonos, please let me know.

 

The posts above you stated that the ads were added by TuneIn, not Sonos. 

Danny
Lyricist II
March 10, 2021

Allright, allright, djeezes. 

Can someone tell me how to stream internet radios without using TuneIn?????

For the silly beginner, TuneIn == Sonos. All you can find when looking for HOW to stream internet radio streams to Sonos devices, is that you have to use TuneIn. So is there technically no other way? Is there another brand of speakers that CAN do this without using some ad-injecting 3rd party?

Lyricist II
March 23, 2021

Sounds like my issue, too...

I have several radio stations set up in the app under My Sonos. The stations all come via TuneInl. Some stations, but not all, play annoying intro ads when I select the station from the app. The ads only play once,at the beginning of a listening session; they do not repeat during the session. These are not ads from the actual radio station, all of which are public radio; they are the kind of cheesy ads that you’d hear on commercial AM radio stations. While listening to a station, I of course hear the (tasteful public radio) ads broadcast by that station, which is fine.

WHAT MAKES ME WONDER IF “MY SONOS” IS THE CULPRIT: If I request the station via Alexa on one of my Sonos1’s, the stations show up as being from TuneIn, but the intro ads do not play.

So, how can I eliminate ads on TuneIn radio stations from My Sonos?

Lyricist II
March 25, 2021

WHAT MAKES ME WONDER IF “MY SONOS” IS THE CULPRIT: If I request the station via Alexa on one of my Sonos1’s, the stations show up as being from TuneIn, but the intro ads do not play.

Interesting, maybe I should venture into speech assistants just for this purpose. Good to know that it works this way using Alexa. I found an article on how to use Alexa on android, so next weekend I’m going to try to get that setup working! Thanks!

March 25, 2021

Sounds like my issue, too...

I have several radio stations set up in the app under My Sonos. The stations all come via TuneInl. Some stations, but not all, play annoying intro ads when I select the station from the app. The ads only play once,at the beginning of a listening session; they do not repeat during the session. These are not ads from the actual radio station, all of which are public radio; they are the kind of cheesy ads that you’d hear on commercial AM radio stations. While listening to a station, I of course hear the (tasteful public radio) ads broadcast by that station, which is fine.

WHAT MAKES ME WONDER IF “MY SONOS” IS THE CULPRIT: If I request the station via Alexa on one of my Sonos1’s, the stations show up as being from TuneIn, but the intro ads do not play.

So, how can I eliminate ads on TuneIn radio stations from My Sonos?

I’ve had a ridiculous number of ads on TuneIn the past month. Sometimes even playing constantly and never going to the station. And  even cutting off a song to play an ad. And they are all public radio stations in the USA. I’ve never had any ads at all before that, just usually the station letting 

I switched to all Sonos Radio stations (even though most pull from TuneIn anyway) and, this morning, Sonos Radio won’t play any station. Went back to TuneIn and the stations played. Although the same one had non-stop commercials again. 

Something is definitely going on. I have another conversation on here and Sonos was helpful but I’ve given up as it’s so random when it happens. I even called the station and they said they have no other reports of non-stop commercials. 

Disappointing for sure.