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Why is it so hard to ask Google to play BBC Radio 1?

  • 2 November 2023
  • 5 replies
  • 863 views
G

I’ve done quite a lot of research on this to try and find a workaround, but I keep hitting roadblocks. Can anyone help please?

I have a Playbar and Play:3 - both are working great and successfully connected to my Google Home

A while back, I used to be able to ask Google to “play radio 1” on Sonos and it would work. Since BBC moved away from TuneIn to BBC Sounds, this no longer works.

I have connected BBC Sounds to Sonos (I can successfully play Radio 1 by using the Sonos app), but when I ask Google to “play radio 1” I get nothing or a random station on my Sonos.

I used IFTTT to create an applet using the BBC Sounds streaming link as the source but Sonos won’t recognise the link and throws an error “unable to play...” Is there is a Sonos friendly URL for Radio 1?

My want is to be able to ask Google to “play radio 1 everywhere” and BBC Radio 1 plays on all my Sonos devices but from what I’ve seen\read it seems like this is impossible. Am I wrong?

Thanks in advance

Steve

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Best answer by Corry P 3 November 2023, 10:25

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5 replies

Corry P
Userlevel 7
Badge +18

Hi @Garf255 

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

When the BBC removed their stations from TuneIN and moved to BBC Sounds, Google never received the ability to play them from the new “location”. As far as I am aware, there is no way to play BBC stations via a Google Assistant command.

I can only recommend that you use the Sonos app or Alexa to play BBC stations from now on.

As for URL’s, I’m not aware of any. Users must now use the BBC Sounds service on Sonos to play when located in the UK.

I hope this helps.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
C

Hi @Garf255 

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

When the BBC removed their stations from TuneIN and moved to BBC Sounds, Google never received the ability to play them from the new “location”. As far as I am aware, there is no way to play BBC stations via a Google Assistant command.

I can only recommend that you use the Sonos app or Alexa to play BBC stations from now on.

As for URL’s, I’m not aware of any. Users must now use the BBC Sounds service on Sonos to play when located in the UK.

I hope this helps.

 

Is this just the case for Sonos? I know when asking google to play BBC radio stations on my google home speakers there is no problem with this working. The only place in my house where BBC radio can’t be controlled by voice is where I have a google hardware (i.e. a Nest Hub) which is using my Sonos beam as it’s default speaker. Then it defaults still to trying to use TuneIn as the service which doesn’t work, or if I specify BBC sounds specifically I’m told it won’t work with the sonos device.

Corry P
Userlevel 7
Badge +18

Hi @colincliff 

I believe it would apply equally to all third-party (not made by Google) devices that can run Google Assistant (excepting Android phones/tablets). I know that to implement BBC playback via Alexa (on Sonos or not), you need to add a BBC Sounds skill to Alexa - I would presume, therefore, that Google would need to do something similar. I don’t know how Google devices go about it presently.

I hope this helps.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
T
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This is ridiculous two such large organisations (will all the money they take off us) can’t sort out a simple request like “Play radio 4 on my Sonos speaker”

 

OUTRAGOUS!

 

SONOS/BBC PLEASE SORT THIS OUT 

T
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