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drchis
Contributor I
October 3, 2019
Question

What is Sonos doing to restore access to BBC radio services in UK via Alexa?

  • October 3, 2019
  • 25 replies
  • 6223 views
Sonos only offers one radio service in the UK, it is called Tune In.
Tens of thousands of UK Sonos customers access the Tune In radio service daily via Alexa.
BBC has now terminated Tune In/Alexa access to their services.
Tune In/Sonos app selection of BBC radio stations is ok, but less convenient than Alexa voice control.
Tune In/Alexa on Amazon Echo still works, but we invested in Sonos to enjoy the sound quality.
Surely lack of a solution will quickly and directly impact UK Sonos sales?
There are several active user threads discussing the issue but no real solutions.
What is Sonos doing to restore access to BBC radio services in UK via Alexa?
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      25 replies

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      John B
      April 21, 2020

      That works - great suggestion.

      The ordinary ‘play’ command works on my voice-enabled Beam, and I assume with any Sonos voice-enabled speaker.  Which makes sense - the issue with the Dot is not that it won’t play, but that it plays on the Dot.

      w022a
      Lyricist II
      April 21, 2020

      "alexa, play radio1 from bbc" also works.  or anything that recognises launching the radio intent from BBC skill.

      I wonder if at some point recently bbc updated the skill to honour the music playback device.

      if you dont invoke bbc skill and say something like  "alexa, play bbc radio1" it will use alexa native skill and play on the echo.

      jrhop
      Contributor II
      April 22, 2020

      Sonos have now created Sonos Radio, which plays there own curated radio stations as well as local and global including BBC. You need to update the app and your speaker(s) to 11.1. I assume BBC will be removing stations from TuneIn on Sonos. 

      John B
      April 22, 2020

      There is no problem playing BBC radio stations using the Sonos app anyway. This is just about Alexa and unless Sonos radio is compatible with Alexa this doesn't seem relevant to me. I haven't really looked into Sonosradio yet.

      DGR1
      DGR1
      Chromatic Producer I
      April 22, 2020

      I just tested the suggestions above and they work :grinning:

      I asked for BBC Radio 1 and it’s playing through my default Sonos speaker. Happy days.

      i was hoping to be able to use an Alexa routine to intercept the standard ‘play Radio 1’ phrase but that only allows use of a provider like Tunein.

      The BBC skill on Alexa doesn’t say that it’s been updated recently so not sure what changed?

       

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