BBC Radio Streams gone?

[mikeedanz]

Was listening to BBC 6 Music today and now...nothing. Neither the Wiim BBC Radio Music Service option nor the direct Internet stream works. Worryingly the Internet stream simply says "gone" when inserted into my Web browser.

I know the BBC is pushing everyone to BBC sounds but this isn't integrated into the wiim app which is a problem....

Anyone experiencing the same issue?

 

[DRC]

I'd like to add that I've been unable to play Radio 2 & Radio 3, through the Wiim app. Everything was working ok until 27th Jan.
All other BBC stations under the national tag are working fine.

Radios 2 and 3 are still not working this morning.

 

[Skull]

Don’t work for me either as I only use WHA it’s annoying
Links on vtuner also don’t work for radio 2 or 3

 

[Burnside]

This comment on GitHub suggests that this issue with BBC Radio might be an ongoing issue for the likes of WiiM, Linkplay etc:

“The BBC licence fee was abolished in 1971, which is the reason why radio is now hived off to "BBC Sounds" instead of being wrapped up with television on BBC iPlayer.

As there is no fee to pay, i.e. no income for them, they save money by reducing the bitrate, but they also save on the cost of bandwidth by discouraging listening, by making it more difficult to listen online, hence the repeated changes of url.

Currently, they are also getting worked-up because some commercial services re-package the BBC streams and relay them overseas with commercials included, to make money from them, something the BBC itself is banned from doing. So the latest round of url changes is not aimed at us but is, rather, designed to break those commercial services which are making revenue from injecting ads into the streams.

This is a largely futile game of wack-a-mole, but at least we are only inconvenienced for 24 hours, until we can figure out the new urls. Some people will lose out entirely, if they bought hardware which needed the now dead stream links. At least we can modify our scripts. Many consumers won't know how to.”

It looks like the BBC are constantly changing the “pool number” in the URL, but this comment suggests how you can find out the new “pool number” should your link stop working: “For any dead link on this page, to get the new url address simply download this .m3u8 file using your browser, and look inside it using any text editor: http://lstn.lv/bbcradio.m3u8?station=bbc_<INSERT STATION NAME HERE>&bitrate=96000”

I fear this is going to be beyond the ability or patience of the average listener so using AirPlay, Chromecast or Bluetooth from the BBC Sounds app might be the way forward for them.

Users of Lyrion/ LMS have it a bit easier in that its BBC plugin uses the BBC Sounds API even though its implementation is not officially sanctioned by the BBC.

Edit: @RyanWithWiim @WiiM Team @WiiM Support - have WiiM any view on this, or a statement to make about it. To me it seems out of WiiM’s hands, but an official statement would be good. Thanks

 

[Skull]

Ah well I gave up on broadcast tv over a decade ago guess I will ditch bbc radio now
There’s plenty of other stations out there
Thanks for the explanation @Burnside

 

[slartibartfast]

This comment on GitHub suggests that this issue with BBC Radio might be an ongoing issue for the likes of WiiM, Linkplay etc:

“The BBC licence fee was abolished in 1971, which is the reason why radio is now hived off to "BBC Sounds" instead of being wrapped up with television on BBC iPlayer.

As there is no fee to pay, i.e. no income for them, they save money by reducing the bitrate, but they also save on the cost of bandwidth by discouraging listening, by making it more difficult to listen online, hence the repeated changes of url.

Currently, they are also getting worked-up because some commercial services re-package the BBC streams and relay them overseas with commercials included, to make money from them, something the BBC itself is banned from doing. So the latest round of url changes is not aimed at us but is, rather, designed to break those commercial services which are making revenue from injecting ads into the streams.

This is a largely futile game of wack-a-mole, but at least we are only inconvenienced for 24 hours, until we can figure out the new urls. Some people will lose out entirely, if they bought hardware which needed the now dead stream links. At least we can modify our scripts. Many consumers won't know how to.”

It looks like the BBC are constantly changing the “pool number” in the URL, but this comment suggests how you can find out the new “pool number” should your link stop working: “For any dead link on this page, to get the new url address simply download this .m3u8 file using your browser, and look inside it using any text editor: http://lstn.lv/bbcradio.m3u8?station=bbc_<INSERT STATION NAME HERE>&bitrate=96000”

I fear this is going to be beyond the ability or patience of the average listener so using AirPlay, Chromecast or Bluetooth from the BBC Sounds app might be the way forward for them.

Users of Lyrion/ LMS have it a bit easier in that its BBC plugin uses the BBC Sounds API even though its implementation is not officially sanctioned by the BBC.

There is still a license fee though and there was always a separate iPlayer app for BBC radio.

 

[Burnside]

There is still a license fee though and there was always a separate iPlayer app for BBC radio.

There hasn’t been a licence fee for radio since 1971, even though I understand some of the revenue from the tv licence may pay for radio services but you can listen to bbc radio without having a licence of any type.

 

[slartibartfast]

There hasn’t been a licence fee for radio since 1971, even though I understand some of the revenue from the tv licence may pay for radio services but you can listen to bbc radio without having a licence of any type.

Radio license fees must be before my time then. I remember dog licenses

 

[slartibartfast]

There hasn’t been a licence fee for radio since 1971, even though I understand some of the revenue from the tv licence may pay for radio services but you can listen to bbc radio without having a licence of any type.

I think there must have been a combined Radio/TV license as well as a Radio only license before 1971. The Radio only one was stopped.

 

[Burnside]

I think there must have been a combined Radio/TV license as well as a Radio only license before 1971. The Radio only one was stopped.

I have very vague recollection of a small piece of paper obtained and signed/stamped at the post office perhaps - although back then I was still at home and not the bill payer

Edit: maybe getting off topic a bit, but see https://publications.parliament.uk/...bined Radio/TV,was introduced in January 1968.

 

[slartibartfast]

I have very vague recollection of a small piece of paper obtained and signed/stamped at the post office perhaps - although back then I was still at home and not the bill payer

I remember going decimal though at the same time

 

[adias]

https://as-hls-ww.live.cf.md.bbci.co.uk/pool_23461179/live/ww/bbc_radio_three/bbc_radio_three.isml/bbc_radio_three-audio=320000.norewind.m3u8
try this one

This pool number works. Thanks!

But as @Burnside says it may change at any moment.

 

[Tonto]

So the WiiM radio folder/icon: " browse / BBC Radio" is all over the place. One day the various BBC radio stations are working okay the next day, some of them no longer work. R2 packed in today. I have tried deleting the favourite and re-selecting R2 again which was a hack that worked last week but not this time. Annoying ... I wonder if it is BBC constantly changing stream urls so we all have to use BBC sounds, or if it is WiiM software issue.

 

[Burnside]

So the WiiM radio folder/icon: " browse / BBC Radio" is all over the place. One day the various BBC radio stations are working okay the next day, some of them no longer work. R2 packed in today. I have tried deleting the favourite and re-selecting R2 again which was a hack that worked last week but not this time. Annoying ... I wonder if it is BBC constantly changing stream urls so we all have to use BBC sounds, or if it is WiiM software issue.

See comment #43 as to why it looks like the BBC are doing it to try and tackle their streams being sold with ads with no commercial agreement or benefit to the BBC.

I don’t know how WiiM/Linkplay avoid this other than developing a BBC Sounds interface like has been done by Lyrion/LMS albeit in the latter case it’s not sanctioned by the BBC even though it uses the official BBC Sounds API.

It looks like using the official BBC Sounds app and Airplay, Chromecast or TuneIn is the way forward in the short to medium term for non-LMS users.

 

[Tonto]

Burnside: thank you for this. I was actually re-reading through the earlier thread posts just now and found your excellent explanation of what is going on. I assume that WiiM are updating their BBC radio icon links from time to time, as some are still working fine. However, the BBC will be continually changing the stream urls. Airplay from 'BBC sounds' app is probably the way forward for me (I don't understand the technicalities of LMS solution yet).

 

[adias]

It looks like the future of a streaming device is to serve as a relay node for streaming services. Thus, the need to implement solid Chromecast, AirPlay and app-specific connect protocols. In addition, WiiM’s user set ‘Open Network Stream’ is the extra generalized node setting tool - a good one to have.

Having to deal with streaming services’ links is an on-going battle. Things like TuneIn and vTuner are not very good either.

Perhaps @WiiM Team @WiiM Support @RyanWithWiim ought to comment on this.

 

[Driver007]

Don't like how 'Open Network Stream' works, because you need open app to change stream and I can't launch stream from my laptop.
So I developed simple web page which does api requests for streams and can control from any device I want. Maybe I will share code later.