US based BBC Sounds access on SONOS

At present, BBC Sounds is available on the Sonos controller app within the UK only.

This is a BBC Sounds restriction, not Sonos.

I think the native BBC Sounds app is available worldwide, and so if you have an Apple device and an Airplay-compatible Sonos speaker (or a Move or a Roam for Bluetooth) you could listen that way.

@Mr. T is nevertheless completely correct the the limitation on Sonos is BBC-imposed.  The BBC seems to get very twitchy about losing control of distribution to third parties, particularly where listening information is concerned.

Outside of the UK BBC radio should be available on TuneIn though.

It’s been available as a plugin on LMS for several years, without needing to be in the UK. Your Sonos speakers can be renderers on LMS via the UPnP/DLNA Bridge plugin.

If you switch your Sonos account to UK you can then add BBC Sounds. However to login to BBC Sounds you need a BBC account, and that might be a challenge to create from the US. I don’t know, as I created my BBC account while visiting the UK. Try it and let us know.

Once setup, BBC Sounds works fine in the USA (ie no geo-fencing).

Thanks! Out of interest, is there any reason to switch it back to the US, and does BBS Sounds go away of you do? On iOS it is such a pain to get as you need a UK Apple App Store account and Apple does not play nicely with switching between accounts if you are an Apple Music subscriber, but once installed, the apps (BBC Sounds and BBC iPlayer) work fine and update themselves even with a primary US account as the default. Of course on Sonos there may be no practical reason to change the country setting…

I add music services often (for testing purposes) but I default to a US account. Switching back to US does not affect BBC Sounds. I also do it on a PC when possible, I much prefer using a real keyboard and readable screen for admin activities.

How do you switch Sonos account to UK?  Thanks in advance for your assistance!

Go into your profile on the Sonos website and change your adress to somewhere in the UK. Give this a while to settle and then set up BBC Sounds on your system.

Worked a treat, thanks all! As already mentioned in the thread, do all this via your PC, very easy, took me about 2 mins to do.  Easy to get a BBC account, it’s free, use a VPN to fake your location if you need to.  I’ve had one for years as I am from the UK.