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?

[frances]

Hi BobbyG,

Thank you for reaching out. That is not great to hear that your Google Assistant is not playing the requested radio station. I understand your concern and would be more than happy to help look into this issue. First, I have some quick questions regarding this situation.

• Which Google Home devices are experiencing this issue? (model name, generation number)
• What app/company are you using for your radio service? (example: iHeartRadio, TuneIn)
• Is this a new issue? Were your devices able to play WRAL FM 101.5 Raleigh HD 1 before?
• How long has this issue been happening?
• What troubleshooting steps have you tried so far?

Thank you for your patience, I look forward to your response. 

[BobbyG]

Hi frances,

None of my google home devices will play the correct station.  I have both  mini, and a home .

I am using tunein.

Yes all were able to play WRAL FM.  That was one reason I bought the home because my radio signal is weak.

This has been going this time for about 2 months. 

I reached out to the radio station and they said they had others having the same problem. 

[Jake]

Hey all,

Sorry for the late reply. I wanted to follow up and see if you are still in need of any help? Please let me know if you are still having any trouble with the device playing the wrong station, as I would be happy to take a closer look and assist you further. 

Best regards,
Jake

[jheeley8]

Yes, it is still playing the HD2 version of the station as opposed to the HD1, even using the correct station call sign.   I went in a built a shortcut to play that exact station as well, but that didnt work either. 

[PocyHake]

Still the same here I ask for BBC Radio 4 and the speaker plays BBC Radio 4 Extra. Tried all sorts of ways to say it, used to work perfectly. Is it becuase it doesn't know which service to use (Tune in or BBC Sounds)  I gave up and reclutanly use Alexa

[SaltyCoogee]

Hey Jake, Yeah it’s still happening in Australia with triple j. 

[WillyWonka]

Still the same for me. I went in to settings and tried to change which app it uses to steam radio, but couldn’t. It’s set to TuneIn. I believe you should be able to do this. 

[scrambledheads]

Yeah still happening, having tested it appears to autocorrect radio to radio 2 and ignores the fact /doesn’t wait for me to say 6. It works if I say say raaaadiiooo 6 

[Tkearsey]

I thought I had solved it but no luck.  I used to be able to say “play CBC Radio 1 St. John’s” and get it. Locally it’s 640am and 88.5fm.  But now I get the sister station from another city in Newfoundland. I think it’s called “CBC Radio 1 Gander-Grand-Falls”. 

[Tkearsey]

Should say using google home minis and TuneIn. Worked until a few months ago. 

[Heleddie]

Hi Jake. Same issue. Have tried resetting everything but it still always picks up BBC Radio 4 Extra rather than BBC Radio 4.

For a time, the same was happening with BBC Radio 2 which kept playing the Welsh version of same channel, but that doesn’t happen anymore… 

Eddie

[Roseale]

It’s the same for me on my google nest mini, use to be able to hear local radio stations from TuneIn but it will not longer play, and will play other stations in Canada instead.

[Stacepticon_1]

I am also having the issue with my google assistant playing a different radio station than the one I ask it to play. It worked fine yesterday. 
It was also happening with my our other google devices.  If I play iheart on my cellphone and then broadcast to my device it works, but I shouldn’t have to do that.

[Mertonia]

All the same here. Worked perfectly for first 2 years after getting 2 Google Homes and 1 Alexa. Firs the Alexa began doing it and now the Google Homes are. I want NPR from Grand Rapids, MI and instead get NPR from somewhere in MN. May start looking at homes there.

[Jake]

Hey all,

Sorry for the late reply. I wanted to follow up and see if you are still in need of any help with your device playing the wrong station? I know this is not ideal. Please let me know if you are still having any trouble from here, as I would be happy to take a closer look and assist you further. 

Best regards,
Jake

[Heleddie]

Hi Jake,

still much the same.

I ask Google to play bbc radio 2 and it says it will play bbc radio 2 via tune in but then plays the Welsh version. When I ask it to play bbc radio 4, it now just says that it can’t find it… 

[Redward1965]

**bleep**! Here in Vancouver, Canada,  I can never get it to play the Welsh language version of BBC Wales. 😉 (Seriously). Same problem with CBC Vancouver and Victoria, where it will intermittently play the latter in error. 

[Rlmcd]

Hi Jake,

this is unfortunately still happening to me. I’ve luckily been able to get my google home to play a station in the right timezone for now (it plays 95.5 triple j Mackay instead of 105.7 triple j Sydney) but this is only a Band-Aid solution until daylight savings starts again and I’m an hour behind. 

[SaltyCoogee]

Hi Jake, Still having the same problem too, using an elongated work around to play it out of tasmania.

[marymary1]

Clearly everyone is still having the same problem. It seems that TuneIn is incapable of processing requests for public radio even when being specific and using the call numbers. Incorrect station results every single time. 

[GarrettDS]

Hey there, 

Sorry to hear about the frustrations that you're having with the Google Assistant, I'm happy to help. 

I would suggest visiting our Google Assistant Forum and writing to them there as this is a question that they would be able to help answer. 

Please let me know if you have any further questions. 

Best regards, 

Garrett DS

[Rlmcd]

I don't think that will help at all, Garrett. This question has been posted on that forum at least twice and either ignored or given a totally unhelpful answer.

https://support.google.com/assistant/thread/123336954?hl=en
https://support.google.com/assistant/thread/147217470?hl=en 

I understand that you can't do anything about this but would love to see some form of escalation given that so many people are reporting this issue.

[WillyWonka]

Garrett,

Clearly you can see the thread and everyone who has noted ongoing issues. There is no fix and as per Rimcd’s response, you need to escalate this issue. The radio station I listen to (a national broadcaster I. Australia), even has this noted as an issue on their website, so clearly something up. A fix would be nice, instead of the usual links to FAQs. I’m starting to regret buying the Google hub set up. Gradually the things it’s meant to do, just stop working. I had the sleep sensing function working and then all of a sudden that screen just stopped showing information. It only showed me if I asked. Now when I ask, it plays a lullaby! Funny, but costly exercise to not get the services promised. 

[ChrisSchryer]

This is still happening for me in Toronto. I ask it to play CBC Music (ie 2), and it plays me CBC Radio 1. What’s weird is if I use the call sign or the frequency it still plays the wrong station. It’s 100% a problem with Tunein. I tried using the Radioplayer app (“okay Google; talk to Radioplayer”) and it sounds promising but as soon as I ask it to play the station the voices changes and the Google mini says “playing CBLFM on Tunein” 😩 It does work intermittently for a few days/weeks (we have an alarm to play the station every morning), but then randomly goes back to playing the wrong station. What would be nice would be if you could specify which app to use by default. But you can’t. 

[marymary1]

I agree wholeheartedly - Tune in does not work. Doesn't even "not work" the same way twice in a row. I now use the CBC listen app to cast to my speakers, it is the ONLY way that works for me. If the assistant voice commands get the right station, it quits after a minute or two - intensely frustrating.  Radioplayer kept stopping, only plays for a minute or two and quits the same way.

[Heleddie]

Is there any update on this issue?

[VKMiddleCove]

We have had the same problem for several months now. We ask Google to play CBC Radio 1 St. john's. She connects us to CBC Gander. Don't know how to get CBC St. John's back. Resetting the Google pair didn't work.

VK

[Tkearsey]

Ok, have you tried the TuneIn app on a phone? You can cast to the speaker. But I think the problem is that the feed TuneIn is using is the central feed not the St. John's one. Maybe this is a TuneIn issue?

[VKMiddleCove]

When asking Google to play the radio, I stretched out the word raaaaadio - and said, "Hey Google, play CBC raaaaaadio 1". And it worked. I got the correct station after many months of it playing the wrong station. I think it is anticipating what you are going to command and, then, tuning into the wrong station. 

[VKMiddleCove]

When giving Google the command stretch out CBC raaaaaaaadio 1 St. John's. It stopped tuning into Gander. And, I'm told, once you have got it playing the correct channel, just tell Google to play the radio and it will default to the last station you heard.

[Tkearsey]

That seems to work! Is this is result of local accents and talking speed? 

[VKMiddleCove]

I think Google is anticipating what you are going to say and assumes something other than what you said. Stretching out the word makes Google listen. Once I got the correct radio station playing, I don't ask for the specific station anymore. I just ask Google to play the radio and I get the station that I want every time. I don't listen to any other station on Google, so this works for me.

[WillyWonka]

The problem for me is that the app is defaulting to the same radio station in a different state - so it’s a different frequency, not a different name. If I add the frequency, it says it doesn’t understand. I’ve tried using the city name, but because it’s not part of the official station title, it misinterprets and gives me the local radio station, which is not the one I want. 
The answer is for Google or the app owners to investigate and implement an update.

[hopp17]

I have the same problem, it randomly started working for  a couple of weeks, but is now playing the alternative station again.  I am using the google home  & nest and it is going through tunein to play the station.  It is a relatively new issue.  It worked since I purchased the google home device, and the problem just started recently in last few months.

[GarrettDS]

Hey there,
Just wanted to hop in here to see if we still needed help on this. Please let us know if you have any other questions or concerns as I will be locking this in 24 hours.

Have a great day.
Garrett DS
 

[hopp17]

Yes, it stills play alternative channel when I ask it to play mix 101.5

[BRC]

I'm in the same boat. Ask my google home to play power 97 Winnipeg and it plays 99.7 Campbell River. 

[Tkearsey]

I listen to “CBC Radio One St. John’s” every morning and every couple of months the station goes missing and I get other CBC stations instead. Is there a master list somewhere to figure out the commands for any station? 

[PocyHake]

Same problem here with BBC stations if I ask for "BBC radio 4" it plays "BBC radio 4 extra". It works perfectly on my Alexa speakers so is a Google issue.