Important Update to BBC Live Radio Access

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

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

@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.

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.

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. 

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

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

Isn’t bbc sounds on S2 only?

This could be crunch day for people with S1 only stuff in UK…...

i am S1, and got BBC Sounds all set up and sorted this morning without a problem.

ok thanks for that, this contradicts what someone with gen1 play5s said on facebook group…….

Could I suggest that if Sonos are aware that significant changes to the way in which people listen to national stations such as the BBC are imminent, that they inform the users who are going to be affected? It shouldn’t be too difficult to do.

Steve.

Agreed….assuming both that Sonos is aware, and the BBC gives them the legal permission to release data such as that in advance. 

Can you add a BBC Sounds station to My Sonos? I'm on S1, can play but not add stations. 

I am having issues with this. When asking to play radio x on BBC sounds Sonos defaults to TuneIn- which doesn’t work. When asking it to use Sounds Google tells me that there is no voice support for that app! Frustrating. Anyone solved this?

Have you added BBC Sounds as a service, as detailed in the original post? You might have to scroll down to get to the Add a Service button. 

Yes you can. See my post above

Added as a service but I can’t ask it to play with voice control, I need to open the Sonos app and find the station and click play - completely breaks usability I relied on in the past, ridiculous they’re making it harder to play content rather than easier. This worked great for me listening to BB Radio 6 up until the other day, now it’s stopped and google assistant always tries to play from TuneIn, says it’s doing it then always fails - met with complete silence now - even though BBC Sounds added as a service to Sonos.

BBC, sort this out and make it work as it did, stop breaking things please.

Working for me. Do you have old Tunein bbc stations saved as favourites? I have deleted all my old ones and replaced with new favourites from BBC Sounds.

BBC stations can be played from within the Sonos app, no longer works with voice control at all, always tries to play from TuneIn and fails, known issue Sonos says BBC hasn’t done the work to integrate with the Sonos API to make it work.

BBC stations can be played from within the Sonos app, no longer works with voice control at all, always tries to play from TuneIn and fails, known issue Sonos says BBC hasn’t done the work to integrate with the Sonos API to make it work.

Google or Alexa voice control? I’m using Alexa.

Thank you @Stuart_W got the BBC stations back onto My Sonos; now just need a way to rename the stations back to BBC Radio ….. so that they appear at the top of the list 😀 

confused, frustrated; and still no radio 4...

 Very confused as I am using BBC Sounds on Sonos I am currently listening to R4 and just checked R4 extra plays as well.

@GandalftheCat To help you more info is needed.