Here’s the background on this story.
The BBC announced that it was cutting support for TuneIn back at the beginning of August, citing a lack of “meaningful data” from the platform. Users would instead have to use the Sounds app on mobile devices, or the custom Sounds ‘skill’ on platforms such as Alexa. TuneIn support for older devices that don’t support the Sounds app or skill will remain.
However, this hasn’t been communicated to users of Alexa’s platform, leaving some users (including this writer) confused when saying ‘Alexa, play 6 Music’ lead to unwanted results – such as the musical Six being played from Spotify.
Support was originally supposed to be ended on August 30, but this appears to have been delayed by a month until September 30 to allow feedback.
How to get BBC radio on Alexa
To simply play, for example, 6 Music it’s just a matter of changing your wording to access the BBC Sounds skill rather than the built-in TuneIn skill – so you say ‘Alexa, ask the BBC to play 6 Music’ rather than just ‘Alexa, play 6 Music’. You may need to install the BBC skill and sign-in with a BBC account.
However, you can no longer play BBC stations across multiple Echos, nor use them as alarms or routines – and it’s not clear if you will ever be able to.
Comments on the blog are overwhelming negative, with many listeners upset that the BBC has “broken” the way they were used to the service being delivered – citing that they can’t listen to the BBC mixed in with other radio stations, while moving around the house, or that they only learned of the change when their usual commands to Echo devices failed to produce the usual results and they found the blog through a Google search.
The BBC says users of Google Home will not be affected as that platform doesn’t use TuneIn.
Neil is head of product at IDG. Previously he spent 20 years editing Tech Advisor’s sister site Digital Arts, so knows a thing or two about design.
