Playing BBC Radio 3 and 4 on HomePod

Right now, the HomePod will match against TuneIn and play BBC Radio without issues.

These should work:

• "Hey Siri, play BBC Radio 3"
• "Hey Siri, play BBC Radio 4"

(This is as opposed to Google Assistant on Sonos, which inexplicably will play BBC Radio 4 Extra when you ask for BBC Radio 4.)

The Future - BBC Account Access through BBC Sounds

It's not clear how long the BBC will allow open international access to BBC Radio streams.  They really want you to listen only through the BBC Sounds application, which requires a (currently free) BBC Account.

Forcing you to an app (rather than a website or radio service stream) and forcing you to use an account is all dark pattern web tracking and monetization stuff, transforming the ad-free BBC radio stream to a junk cluttered audio mess. 

Using the BBC – Why do I have to provide personal info when I register outside the UK?

because outside the UK the BBC is commercially funded, BBC Global News Limited also use it to personalise your advertising experience. If you’d prefer we didn’t use your information in this way, you can change your cookie settings.

Using the BBC – How can I change my BBC cookie settings?

If you’re outside the UK, you’ll see advertising, including commercial content recommendations, sponsored content and promotional messages. We use the income from advertising to help fund BBC services, including making BBC Online available outside the UK. Find out more about personalised advertising cookies.

So I don't even know if it will be bearable to listen to the radio streams anymore.  One would hope they at least offer a paid ad-free tier internationally, as the BBC History Extra podcast currently does.

Using Shortcuts

At such time as the radio streams are no longer available, you'll have to go through the BBC Sounds app.  Ideally the app needs to support SiriKit Media Intents.  I don't know that it does.

It definitely supports Shortcuts although the behaviour is really confusing.

Rather than just exposing all of its Shortcuts so you can make your own code, BBC Sounds only displays the shortcut (in the Shortcuts app) while it is playing the station.  So if you want a shortcut to Play BBC Radio 3, you first have to:

1. Go to the BBC Sounds app (you'll have to login with a BBC Account that you can create for free)
2. Start playing BBC Radio 3
3. Switch to the Apple Shortcuts application
4. See the "Play Radio 3" shortcut that has appeared, and use it to make your own permanent shortcut.
5. (You may want to rename it to "Play BBC Radio 3" depending on your preferences.  Note that Shortcut names are checked first; they override even built-in Siri functions.)

The behavior of the shortcut was not what I expected, because when I invoked the shortcut from the HomePod, it started playing on the device (e.g. on the iPad), not on the HomePod.

I don't know if this is a bug or intended functionality.  You might need to add extra steps in the shortcut to switch the audio output.

For more on how to make shortcuts that you can access from Siri on HomePod, see Shortcuts User Guide and Use Siri to run shortcuts with your voice.