Why can't Alexa find my radio station?
Mishearing things happens to everyone occasionally, but when listening is the main part of your job—as it is for Amazon Alexa devices—the experience can be frustrating for users.
Alexa skills all have a main "invocation." This is the prompt that activates your skill, like "Alexa, play [invocation]."
On this page, we'll discuss various factors that can prevent Alexa from running your skill correctly.
🛜 Are you connected to the internet?
The first thing to check is whether your Alexa device can reliably connect to the internet. If Alexa responds with "I'm having trouble connecting at the moment", and the light turns red, you should check the Alexa app on your phone or tablet for details about your Alexa's connection status.
🎙️ Is your microphone enabled?
If your Alexa device and microphone button are illuminated in red, your device is currently muted and not listening to commands. Press the microphone button to unmute Alexa, and the device should respond to commands again.
✅ Is the skill enabled on your Amazon account?
If Alexa responds to your command but does not behave as expected, like playing a different station, you may not have enabled the skill on your Amazon account.
Out of the box, Amazon provides some built-in Alexa functionality to chosen providers like TuneIn, iHeartRadio or Global, which do not require a skill to function. In some cases, these default providers will try to act on your instructions where a dedicated skill matching the invocation is not enabled.
For example, if a listener is trying to play your station and is getting a similarly-named one from TuneIn instead, they likely have not enabled your skill on their Amazon account first.
To enable a skill:
- Users can say "Alexa, enable [invocation]"
- Users can search for your skill name via the Alexa app or Amazon website and press 'Enable'
- You could create a page on your station's website, like [station].com/alexa, that redirects visitors to the Amazon page, which allows users to enable the skill.
Skills need only be enabled once on each Amazon account; once enabled, they will work on every Alexa device paired with that account.
💬 Is your skill's invocation distinctive enough?
As Alexa is available worldwide, some stations may find that their preferred invocation is already being used. Alexa skills are not restricted geographically, and availability is instead determined by a skill's language(s).
For example, if a skill is only listed with Amazon as being available in English (US), Alexa devices set to use other English variations as their language will not be able to play the skill.
You can select multiple languages for your skill, but targeting too broad an area may cause Amazon to reject your submission unless you prove your station is already available to listeners in those areas.
Where an invocation is already taken by another station in the same area - such as two US stations with the same name - you may need to be creative in choosing your skill's invocation.
A popular approach is to prefix your station name with its broadcast area, so instead of just using a generic station name like "Greatest Hits", using "New York's Greatest Hits" will increase the chance of listeners hearing your station first time.
Alexa can struggle to understand homophones—words that sound like another but have a different spelling. This is especially noticeable with stations named after places, where asking for something like "Plain Radio" could bring up "Plane Radio" instead.
Under Amazon's current rules, once a skill's invocation has been set, it cannot be changed. You will need to remove your existing skill and publish a new one to change its main invocation. Find out more...
If you are not able to use your station's name as your skill invocation - either because it has been identified as a trademark or due to Alexa not understanding it correctly - you will need to contact Amazon directly via the Amazon Developer Console. You can find more information on Amazon's rules for skill invocations here.
🔇 Is there an issue with the stream URL being used by your skill?
If you have set up a custom greeting for your station's skill, such as a welcome message or announcement of the current show, which plays before falling silent, there is likely an issue with your live audio stream being used by Alexa.
If you know the URL being used by your skill, try opening it from another device to see if it loads correctly. Stations using an Aiir skill can check this by logging in to the CMS and opening the Alexa Skills app from the main menu.