Playing BBC Radio on Home Hub

[Block]

I have always been able to play BBC radio stations on my Home Hub by asking 'play radio 4', but today it just responds 'i can't do that on here'. What has changed?

[SM56]

The issue here is to get the Google smart speaker play BBC Radio stations live, like it used to. But I have realised is that you can do this via BBC Sounds on your smart phone and then cast this to your Google smart speaker. Remember other users haven't experienced this yet. My friend on Norway gets his Google smart speaker to play BBC Radio 2 with the command 'OK Google play BBC Radio 2' and that's what I used to be able to do a week ago (but not now)

[Joolz]

I'm in Ireland and want to play BBC Radio 4 and World Service through the night , so casting from phone is not convenient. When BBC started warning that my internet radios wouldn't  be able to play BBC radio after June I bought a Nest mini and was delighted with it, but now BBC is saying google speakers won't be able to play BBC radio after June, so I have wasted my money. I'm furious with the BBC. I know Google is not to blame but couldn't they find a solution? Otherwise we'll all have to change to the wretched Alexa.

[GommsterUK]

I agree completely with you. When the BBC's internet radio 'turning off'  message first appeared it said to contact the radio manufacturers which I did. They said there was nothing they could do about it. Who do the BBC think they are fooling, they are just penny pinching  because of all their previous disastrous  bad financial decisions. This is a case of 'the buck passes here'!

[Gasman]

That does not work if I want to wake up to BBC radio 2 at 6am on Saturdays. 🙂

[Turrican1973]

I have the EXACT same problem!

[Irid]

have a problem that other users have identified, but as I cant see that any administrator has provided an answer, I am asking again.

I use my Google home to listen to radio, usually BBC, and also to play music with Spotify.  After months of trouble-free working,  Google now says "I can't do that here, but you can ask me to play it on one of your devices" every time I ask it to play bbc radio. Thinking that Spotify was the problem, I deleted my Spotify account.  This solved the problem for a day or so, but now the problem has returned. 

I have looked on several help sites, who have offered various solutions. I fear that these are all temporary fixes.  I believe that Google must know whats going on. Perhaps they are doing upgrades.  I really would like an answer from Google, please.

[jd417]

Mine also. Was working on Saturday but not since. I can play it on my Android devices & bluetooth it to the Google Hub but it's not ideal.

[Nannysunshine]

This is happening to me also what is going on?

[jd417]

Appears to be a problem with BBC who are aware of issue & investigating.

[Irid]

You are right!  I can play other radio stations but not BBC.  Thanks 

[Muddi]

Hey everyone,

Sorry for the delayed response. Our team is aware of the issue wherein users are having issues playing BBC stations on the Google Home/Nest devices, so I'll go ahead and duplicate this thread to the main one here. I suggest you follow the main thread for updates.

For those users having issues with Radio apps, please follow this link for additional steps and updates.

Cheers,

Muddi

[Rebelcode]

Yes I've just noticed this had started happening again to my devices. It was fixed previously, for me, some time during the 5th April but has now recurred. Have sent feedback as previously but it's just a waiting game now I guess

[GeoffG1]

Me too - fine up until last Saturday and since then I'm unable to stream any BBC radio station to my Home Mini. Factory reset didn't help - have submitted a complaint to the BBC who seem to be aware of the problem. I know I can stream from my phone via Bluetooth, but that isn't always convenient. Unless this gets fixed soon I'll have to sell my two speakers and replace them with Amazon Echo Dots.....

[Bluessential]

I sent the BBC a complaint which I am going to share here ...

Live radio on google devices and Sounds generally 

Feedback Description - When are you and google going to sort out playing bbc radio live on google nest devices?
Your response to this issue is very poor. I want to complain about the poor support for Sounds generally and this issue in particular. You wanted to "do you own thing" regarding both live radio and podcasts and Sounds is grossly substandard.  .... [text removed]

I challenge you to comprehensively set out how you are going to ensure, if you continue with Sounds, that it is technically robust, meets users' needs, and whether you are going to elicit the opinions of your listeners in developing it further.

I suspect that you will simply ignore this complaint.

[chrisb1]

Come on BBC &/or Google please repair the link you've broken. It can't be rocket science!

Just to remind everyone all the UK commercial services, via TuneIn, PlanetRadio etc, are working fine.

[RMuser]

This is a problem like all the other recent ones, somebody made a change they didn't test and it broke - in this case it was the BBC. There isn't anything you can do apart from wait for that somebody to fix their mistake.

In the meantime you can use the BBC sounds app to cast the station to your speaker, which is a PITA, but does work.

[DevDes]

Having the same problem. Can't play ANY radio stations, I get the 'I can't do that here response'. Also noted the Assistant's voice has changed to a male voice, not by me! Maybe a recent auto-update has caused the problem?

[Nessa]

I’m in Australia.

I’m having the same issue.  It picks and chooses which radio stations it wants to play.  I’ve set my alarm to play 3AW at whatever time and it’s fine, but when I ask to play 3AW during the day, I get the same message.

It’s a PITA.

[Adeski]

Same thing here. I have a morning routine set up and since 7th April, the routine starts but fails with a "I can't do that here' when it tries to stream Radio 4

[JulieJ1]

Suddenly stopped playing radio 2. The radio option in Media - manage your system has disappeared. How do I get it back?

[NoelWalters]

I am also having a problem with BBC on my nest hub since last night. When I say "ok google play bbc radio four" it just says either "I can't do that but here's something I found on the web" or "I can't do that here but you can ask me to stream it on one of your other devices ". However if I ask it to stream it to another device it reverts to searching the web again.

[Hannahm]

My google nest is also refusing to play bbc radio stations. It will play other radio stations such as Heart Radio and Jack FM but ask it to play any bbc radio it says ‘I can’t do that right now’. 
I have also tried saying ‘play bbc radio 2 on tuneIn’ but it cannot do it. 

[ArtySteve]

 It has been happening to my google mini's for a week now. I can't find any resolution after rebooting the factory reset and no response from the BBC... this happens with apple speakers too. the BBCs responce was they cant work with apple because they don't have the funds and apple will not work with them. I wonder what excuse the BBC will come up with for this. Maybe they are trying to cut off the live service for google speakers too...?

[MichelleE]

Cant play any BBC radio stations. I always just say 'OK Google put the radio on' and it always plays radio4 no problem. Now i get "I looked for that but it either isn't available or can't be played right now". Can play other stations. About 24 hours now...

[Gasman]

I was just about to post this issue myself, when I saw this thread.
This is what I have just sent to google support as I supposedly have an open ticket about all my issues with my minis, but have not heard from them in while now.

Ok, latest disaster with my google minis.

I have an activity that starts at 06:00 on Saturday mornings or when I say 'Play BBC Radio 2'
This is a national redio channel in the UK.

So it did not start last week and this week I was awake for it to start, but again it did not.
So I gave the command to the bedroom speaker. It replied 'I can't do that right now, but you can ask me to play it on another device'
So I asked it to play BBC Radio 2 on the landing speaker. It then replied 'I can't do that yet'???

None of my speakers can play BBC Radio 2 anymore???
I have just found that it will play Planet Rock though?

Edit: Just tried with Alexa on my phone and that cannot play BBC Radio 2?  I was expecting it to TBH. SO perhaps BBC have withdawn the channels in some way?

[IRMG]

Its CRAZY upto this week google always streamed bbc radio through bbc never any problems. This week they change it to stream from tunein and lots of problems. There have been so many tunein radio problems on here that serious questions are needed why google did this. 

[Gasman]

IRMG,
Where did you get that info from?, as Alexa on my phone also cannot play BBC radio. It says it cannot find the radio station I requested. BBC Radio 1 or 2.

[David_K]

Looks like this is a known issue the BBC are aware of and investigating.

Why can't I listen to live BBC radio on my Google speaker? | BBC Sounds

[DevDes]

Having the same problem. Can't play ANY radio through Nest or Hub. Was working fine last week. Also noticed my Google Assistant's voice has changed to a male, not by me... maybe some sort of auto-update has caused the problem.

[Muddi]

Hey everyone,

Thanks to @David_K, for helping here. I’ve duplicated your thread to the main one here. You’ll receive all updates on this issue on the main thread and we recommend updating and checking this thread when needed.

Cheers,

Muddi

[SassoPalmieri]

Both nests usually work fine (aside from the usual glitches) but one recently refused to play the radio on the command 'OK Google, play Radio 2.' I got the response: 'I can't do that here, but you can ask me to play it on one of your devices.' Clearly, that's an error, as it's managed it several hundred times before. 

Anyone experienced similar? 

[JJ68]

Yup same here. Lost BBC 5 Live and everything else too about 20 minutes ago…

[SassoPalmieri]

Ah, least we know it's not the devices. See if normal service is resumed tomorrow. 

[Buddhadiane]

My display is saying the same and yet when I ask my phone Sounds to play radio 4 and cast it to my display it works. I’ve been listening to Radio 4 for years without issue entail tonight. 

[Granita]

Yes I have had the same problem trying to get BBC radio 4 ..do we know what's going on?

[Buddhadiane]

I haven’t seen anyone say what might be wrong but I have a work around solution casting my phone to my display.

[bluerock27]

I have experienced the same problem since this afternoon. No BBC radio channels are currently playable, but they have worked OK for years! Hope to have it sorted quickly or the Home Hub may find itself replaced by an Alexa device! 

[Warjacqui]

Yep, me today, after a couple of years working (same, BBC radio 4) 

[SassoPalmieri]

FEI, it was working again the next morning. 

[bluerock27]

For me, too. Worked again the next day.

I guess someone at the BBC (or their streaming service provider) made a change ("upgrade?") which broke the integration with Google.

It would be too much to hope a lesson had been learnt - I'm sure we'll see it happen again!