Smart speaker platforms are 'walled garden' systems that are ultimately controlled by the company that owns them - either Amazon, Google [or Apple].

Currently, only Amazon provide a mechanism for broadcasters to sign up and list their station.

Although the Broadcast Radio team will make every reasonable effort to get your station on Alexa, we cannot guarantee this.

In this article, we will explore the limitations with smart speaker platforms.

TuneIn

The TuneIn directory serves as the database of radio stations for both Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri.

Although not all stations are eligible for listing on TuneIn, we recommend our customers explore it as an option.

Amazon Alexa

Alexa uses machine learning to fine-tune its "language model". This means that Alexa's behaviour changes over time - in response to new skills and features being added (or removed) from the platform.

Platform Limitations

Unfortunately, the fine-tuning makes it difficult to achieve consistency inside Alexa. For example - for a group of users, asking "play Radio Example" will play the correct station. But for others, it may start playing a playlist on Amazon Music.

Alexa only supports these languages: English, German, Japanese, French, Italian, Spanish, Hindi, Portugese and Arabic. We cannot guarantee stations in other languages or regions will be compatible.

There are two types of Alexa skill:

Classic Skills

These skills are more powerful, and provide customisations such as a "pre-roll" message. These skills generally take 2 - 5 days to be approved, and are a good way to quickly get your radio station on Alexa. 

Limitations of Classic Skills

Classic skills are generally popularity-ranked - so Alexa may choose a similar sounding skill for a completely different service.

Until a certain number of "active users" is reached for 'auto-enablement', the skill also needs to be activated by each listener before it can be used:

"Alexa, enable Radio Example"

Modern Radio Skills

These skills are more reliable, but don't have the same level of customisation.

They work by adding your radio station into a database, which is used alongside TuneIn and other radio aggregation services.

Unlike classic skills, Alexa fully understands that it is playing a radio service. If there are two stations called "Radio Example" in its database, it will choose the one closest to the listener.

We can submit one of these skills either at request, or if we've been unable to achieve sufficient reliability when building your Custom skill.

Limitations of Radio Skills

Modern radio skills take 4-6 weeks to be approved by Amazon - significantly longer than Classic skills.

Google Assistant / Home

In 2021, Google disabled support for radio from their Assistant / Home platform. As such, it is no longer possible to integrate a radio station on Assistant (with the exception of through the TuneIn directory).

Apple HomePod / Siri

Except for the TuneIn directory, Apple don't yet provide a mechanism for radio stations to sign up.