Retired Community Staff

Important Update to BBC Live Radio Access

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119 replies
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Hi everyone,

The BBC has made some changes to the way you can access BBC live radio in the United Kingdom.

BBC live radio will not be available through Sonos Radio, or TuneIn in the United Kingdom from Today, 13th April 2022.

Find all your favourite BBC radio stations, podcasts and music mixes on BBC Sounds, available on Sonos in the United Kingdom.

To keep listening, you can add BBC Sounds to your Sonos system:

iOS or Android:

Open the Sonos app.
From the Settings tab, tap Services & Voice.
Under Music & Content, tap Add a Service.
Tap on BBC Sounds
Tap Add to Sonos.
Follow the on-screen instructions to add the music service account.

Mac or PC:

Open the Sonos app.
Under the Select a Music Source section, click on Add Music Services.
Click on BBC Sounds
Follow the on-screen instructions to add the music service account.

Users outside of the United Kingdom will still be able to listen to BBC live radio through Sonos Radio.

Cheers,

James L.

BBC Sounds

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U

UKTreoFan

Collaborator II

Just spent all morning wondering why my ‘wake up to’ BBC radio stations have not been playing.

Seems slightly odd that as someone who pays the UK TV Licence fee I can’t get BBC radio on TuneIn but ‘Users outside of the United Kingdom will still be able to listen to BBC live radio through Sonos Radio’.

This seems to have happened with 0 notice; do we know why, and is this permanent? I’ve avoided BBC Sounds to date

C

castalla

Local Superstar

The TV licence fee is for TV reception only. There is no fee for radio reception.

It's the courageous bee's knees - all 6 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝. - - - - - Make Sonos Great Again - - - - -

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UKTreoFan

Collaborator II

@castalla the TV licence fee is predicated on ‘watching live TV’ but funds all BBC services. Thus the TV licence fee I pay, which is levied and collected by the BBC (outsourced to TV Licensing), pays for BBC radio.

James L.Author

Retired Community Staff

Hi @UKTreoFan,

This is indeed a permanent change. The BBC started the removal of their content from TuneIn back in 2019 and now that the BBC Sounds service is available on Sonos they’ve moved all of their live content over to that platform.

BBC stations are still available on Sonos Radio outside of the UK as BBC Sounds is only available to UK listeners.

Castalla is correct in that you don’t need to pay the TV License fee to access BBC radio on any platform, including BBC Sounds.

Since this is a decision made by the BBC, I’d ask that you direct any further questions towards them directly as we don’t have any further information about these changes.

Mark good posts by pressing the like button, and select the best answer on questions you've asked to help others find solutions.

G

Guthrie-S

Lyricist I

Hi - It all seems pretty straight forward but I can’t see e to get the BBC Sounds App to appear on the ‘Services & Voice’ / ‘Music & Content’ section.

I’ve tried deleting & reloading everything & re-registering on the BBC with a matching email with no joy.

Any ideas gratefully received..!

N

nik9669a

Senior Virtuoso

Hi - It all seems pretty straight forward but I can’t see e to get the BBC Sounds App to appear on the ‘Services & Voice’ / ‘Music & Content’ section.

I’ve tried deleting & reloading everything & re-registering on the BBC with a matching email with no joy.

Any ideas gratefully received..!

Did you scroll down to the “Add a service” button? Then scroll through the service options and add any you want.

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UKTreoFan

Collaborator II

@James L. Indeed, a decision by the BBC so I’ll contact them.

Stuart_W

World-Class Superstar

Just spent all morning wondering why my ‘wake up to’ BBC radio stations have not been playing.

Seems slightly odd that as someone who pays the UK TV Licence fee I can’t get BBC radio on TuneIn but ‘Users outside of the United Kingdom will still be able to listen to BBC live radio through Sonos Radio’.

This seems to have happened with 0 notice; do we know why, and is this permanent? I’ve avoided BBC Sounds to date

I used to not use BBC Sounds much because it wasn’t integrated into Sonos. Though there were occasions when a BBC podcast was not available on PocketCasts and I could listen via iPhone/iPad and AirPlay but it was slightly clunky. Since BBC Sounds was added as a service I started to use it much more just not for radio. The integration needs improvement for podcasts and even bookmarked episodes - It doesn’t show play status which is a problem.

What I have found really good though is being able to bookmark a single program or episode of a longer podcast series and then listen via Sonos - I then delete from Bookmarks via the iPhone or iPad BBC Sounds app which are pretty good. The reason I find it so good is that I follow a few BBC accounts and they’ll occasionally post interesting programs or episodes and it is really easy to click through and bookmark and then it is there to listen to really easily.

Like on another thread I had a problem adding the radio stations to Sonos favourites - What I find works is to search for the station and then when you see it under BBC Sounds click the 3 dots to the right of the station and from there it can be added to favourites

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