BBC Sounds enables multi-room playback on Alexa
November 10, 2023
Listeners with Alexa-enabled smart speakers are now able to listen to BBC Sounds on multiple Alexa devices at once.
Aniruddh Dimri Head of Product, BBC Sounds, commented: We know that this is something our listeners have been wanting for a long time, and we’ve worked hard with Amazon to make it happen. If you have a device group or speaker group set up in your Amazon Alexa app, you can use the group name when playing from the BBC Sounds skill, and the content will play on all devices within that group.”
He continued: “Plus, we’ve been innovating over the last year to improve the BBC Sounds experience on Alexa, so now there are lots of things you can do with live radio on your Alexa-enabled devices. The BBC Sounds skill is the only Alexa service in the UK which lets you restart the live radio show you’re listening to, so if you miss the beginning of The News Quiz you can easily go straight back to the beginning by saying, ‘Alexa, ask BBC Sounds to restart’.”
“Also unique to the BBC Sounds skill is the ability to rewind live radio, either to a specific time, if for example you want to catch an 8am chat on Lauren Laverne’s breakfast show, you can say ‘Alexa, ask BBC Sounds to rewind to 8am’, or by a certain amount of time, so if you’ve missed the beginning of an interesting interview on the Today programme, you can say, ‘Alexa, ask BBC Sounds to rewind 15 minutes’. You can also pause live radio and resume where you left off; and fast forward your rewound stream. We want you to enjoy your favourite radio shows in a way which fits in with what you’re doing,” added Dimri.