google home devices plays the wrong radio station

[BobbyG]

None of my google home devices will play the correct radio station.  I ask it to play WRAL FM 101.5 Raleigh HD 1 and it plays WRAL FM 101.5 Raleigh HD 2 through tune In.  It used to work  but no longer.  Any ideas?

[Jay3]

I’m having the same issue. Obviously we need help. 
stop replying asking if we still need help. I

typical Google avoiding doing anything and thinking we’re dumb enough to think they have good customer service because they send these annoying follow up messages 

[moodip]

same for me...ask for bbc radio 2 and get radio 2 wales....mortified on several fronts.

other national stations are not being found.

using sonos one and now gone back to alexa...much more stable.

come on google sort this out...or don't you give a **bleep**?

[marymary1]

Since it seems primarily to be public radio stations It must have something to do with the fact that there are multiple stations with similar call letters or phrases. It also is a problem that Google is using TuneIn and I have no choice about tune in to find a station. I tried setting up an account with TuneIn and adding stations and that did not help. In fact it seemed to make it worse. I also have trouble with ads that are clearly sponsored by TuneIn breaking up shows that I'm listening to on public radio, which is ad free. This is totally screwy.

[Juni]

Hi everyone,

@Mertonia and marymary1, you can use this helpful link to stream your radio. It provides tips and troubleshooting steps too.

Regards,

Juni

[SaltyCoogee]

Thanks for trying @Juni , but it seems you may have missed the older posts here where people have described using these very commands and still getting the wrong station/wrong time zone. Please have a read of all the posts to understand the problem. 
it looks like something that may need to be investigated deeper by the google home team on the back end. 

[Juni]

Hi there,

Thanks for the response. Check these steps and see if this helps.

1. If your speaker or display doesn't play the radio station you requested, be more specific with your query, or ask for the station in a different way, using name, frequency or call sign.
2. If the request is not properly answered, try to add "on TuneIn" or “on iHeartRadio” to the query. Example: "Play ESPN Radio on TuneIn,” or "Play ESPN Radio on iHeartRadio."
3. If the provided station is inaccurate when asking for frequency, try to add the name of a nearby city. Example: "Play 101.9 FM LA."

We also encourage you to contact the radio station so they can give you updates and specific command that can be used to listen to their station.

Thanks,

Juni

[PocyHake]

No this is not the issue! If I askk for BBC Radio 4 it palys BBC radio 4 extra on Tune in, if however I ask for BBC radio on a pseaker group it play the correct station via BBC sounds. It is nothing to do with the name of the station as I request the same station name.

[Rlmcd]

Honestly @Juni if you're not going to bother reading the whole thread just don't reply

[Stacepticon_1]

Hi Juni. 
For me, I am in Washington state and  I say, “Hey Google, play 95.7 The Jet on IHeartRadio”.95.7 The Jet is a 70’s/80’s/90’s hit station. It will tell me that it playing what I asked, but it actually plays KUBE 93.3FM. The even more bizarre thing is that KUBE 93.3 was a rap/pop station here in Seattle that is no longer. 93.3 is now KJR Sports Radio (Seattle, WA) part of iHeart as well.  If I was to turn to 93.3 in my car on the regular radio dial. - it will be sports radio.  So again. I asked for The Jet and it’s playing Rap. 

Many people on here have said for years this is not working. It is not on our end. It is a glitch with the google players. Please test it on your end.

[kari454]

This response offered no help, if you read what the problem is....I say, "Hey Google, play iheart radio 95.7 the Jet" Google then response with "Ok, playing Iheart radio The Jet 95.7" but it actually plays KUBE 93.3, if Google is repeating correctly then your suggestions are of no use. I have tried just Iheart radio The Jet or Iheart radio 95.7, it always repeats exactly what I've said and it's correct but it then plays 93.3 The KUBE and The Jet is an active radio station on 95.7

[Stacepticon_1]

Maybe we should ask Jodi and Bender to ask Sarge to bring it up to i Heart. 

[Dan_A]

Hi everyone,

Chiming in to see if the behavior when playing a radio station persists? Is it still playing a different station? Is it happening when you have them play individually or are your Nest speakers on a speaker group?

Keep us posted.

Best,

Dan

[PocyHake]

Yep, stil very anoying. If I ask to play BBC radio 4 it plays BBC Radio 4 extra on Tune In. If I ask it to BBC Radio 4 on a group of speaker it plays BBC Radio 4 on BBC Sounds. Why does it not always play on BBC sounds? How can I disable Tune In, I never use this service?

[scrambledheads]

Either way, speaker groups don't appear to play any part in this. It appears to guess before I have finished speaking and therefore gets it wrong.

Its also got worse in that "play Radio ..." now starts a Youtube playlist, I have to say "Stream Radio ..."

[kari454]

Individual, group, it does the same every time, repeats what I asked perfectly but plays KUBE and that never changes either...I ask it to play The Jet and it says ok playing The Jet and always plays KUBE and yes in every manner, I feel like I have to wait months just to get another off the wall question, the next question yes I've tried that please skip ahead to the solution 

[Heleddie]

Thanks for not listening or accepting there is an issue. Multiple people are reporting the same issue.

from my experience, I am trying to play BBC Radio in the UK. It’s THE national radio and not some minor local town station.

it plays perfectly if I set my Google home as the default player, but if I have my Sonos set as the default, then it plays BBC radio wales or can’t find the station. 

There is clearly something wrong with TuneIn and/or Google. I was going to buy more Google home devices but have scrapped that idea.

please please don’t reply to this thread with the same generic advice that has been given for years.

[Wattsywatts]

I have the same problem with any bbc or absolute radio station. I'm beginning to believe Google have broken it on purpose if a sonos is connected. It stopped working correctly after the last law suit. Terrible and thinking of going back to the other evil monopoly.

I just want to play the correct radio station!

[PocyHake]

Thinking back that does seem relevant. I have multiple Sonos/Ikea speakers connected and it worked fine when I first set it all up. I use Alexa on the Sonos speakers that have Google and Alexa built in because it just works better. I would switch but have invested too much in Google devices.

[Wattsywatts]

I'm the same I moved away from Amazon a few years ago due to performance problems but at least it worked all the time every time. I have to use the Sonos app to get what I want to play now, which really make the google home pointless for what the family uses it for.

[scrambledheads]

Now this just refuses to play any BBC Radio station FFS

[PocyHake]

Same here. I have spoken to support (real person on the telephone) and this is a known problem that they are "working with the BBC" to try and fix. They gave me an estimate of 2 days yesterday. This is not a fix for playing the wrong station just to play anything from BBC sounds.

[scrambledheads]

Can I ask does "Open BBC Sounds" work for you? It never has for me but in theory would be a workaround if a bit of a pain

[PocyHake]

Just tried saying "Open BBC sounds" and it responded with "which display do want to play the video on"! I used to say "BBC radio 4 from the BBC on (group name)" for example and it played the correct station. This only worked on groups, not on individual speakers.

[scrambledheads]

This is working for me for the last few days (better than it ever did)

[WillyWonka]

This issue is so frustrating, but can I say, I love this forum! As much as I feel bad for everyone’s ongoing issues, I always smile when I see the posts. 

[JW27]

I have 3 Google Nest audios and two Lenovo Smart clocks connected to my home. I am experiencing similar issues to many others in that the devices rarely connect to the radio stations I ask them to. Our Google mini used to work ok, until its speaker completely failed, so had to be thrown out. Any hints as to how I can interrogate Google and the devices to play the correct radio stations? I have tried specific frequencies and station names, to no avail. I live in Australia.

[marymary1]

In the past week I can no longer cast radio to either of my speakers, the mini or the larger one. Out of the blue I started having to listen to advertising again from TuneIn before the station would come in, and it will only cast for a moment and then quits. It's a total fail and no it's not my internet for God's sake.

It is not the speaker failure, it is the streaming failure. I don't know if it's TuneIn that does not work? I can cast audio from my phone and that works, and I can get it to play music from for instance my YouTube music collection. Radio? Total fail.

[Abcdefghijklmno]

Experiencing this problem for over a year, used to work fine. Asking it to play “NPO Radio 2” and it just plays a foreign ”radio 2”.

The singularity is near, but my google home can not learn or be instructed to play the one radio station I listen to every day.