A client advisory from Radioservers, LLC · September 2026

The short version

Since Amazon began moving customers to Alexa+, voice requests for radio skills are failing far more often than before. Your skill has not changed and is not broken. What changed is how Alexa decides which service answers a request, and that decision happens inside Amazon before your skill ever hears it.

This is not limited to radio. Other well-known skills report the same problem, and Amazon has told at least one of them it is investigating. Amazon has not announced an end to radio skills, but its recommended path for radio is now the free Alexa Radio Skills Kit (RSK). Our recommendation is to run your station on RSK and keep your custom skill, and to change the phrase you promote on air from “play” to “open.”

What your listeners are running into

The pattern is consistent across the stations we support. A phrase that worked every time for years now works only some of the time, or plays a different station.

What the listener says What used to happen What happens now
“Alexa, play WXYZ” The WXYZ skill started, every time Often fails or plays something else
“Alexa, play WXYZ skill” Not needed Works sometimes, not reliably
“Alexa, play 104.9 WXYZ” The station’s own skill played A different “104.9” or “WXYZ” station plays through TuneIn
“Alexa, play WBAP skill” (a former Dallas listener now living in Massachusetts) WBAP played from Dallas WCAP, a local Massachusetts station, plays through TuneIn

The last example matters most. That listener has your skill enabled, named the station and even added the word “skill,” and Alexa still chose a nearby station with a similar-sounding name. Stations with common names (“The River,” “The Fan,” “Mix,” “Kiss”) and call letters that sound like other call letters are hit hardest.

Why it is happening

Think of Alexa as a switchboard operator. When a listener speaks, Alexa first decides who should take the call: its own music service, a radio directory like TuneIn, or a skill like yours. Only after that choice does the request reach the skill. If Alexa routes it elsewhere, your skill never hears it, and there is nothing in your skill we can change to catch it.

Three things are working against station skills right now:

  • The new Alexa+ assistant makes that routing decision differently. Alexa+ uses AI to guess what the listener means rather than matching exact phrases. The AnyList app, which has nothing to do with radio, reports that its skill commands started failing much more often in March 2026, and that turning off Alexa+ improves things.
  • The word “play” pulls toward Alexa’s built-in radio directory. Alexa has had built-in radio from TuneIn and others for years. With Alexa+, a request that starts with “play” appears to go to that directory first, before your skill is considered. This is our assessment from testing and developer reports. Amazon has not published how Alexa+ routes these requests.
  • The built-in directory favors nearby stations. Amazon’s own documentation says that when someone asks for a station, Alexa looks for matching stations near the listener. That helps a local listener, but it is exactly why the Massachusetts listener gets WCAP instead of WBAP.

None of this is a coding error on the station side, and re-publishing or re-certifying the skill will not fix it.

Is Amazon walking away from radio skills?

Not officially. Amazon has made no announcement ending radio skills or custom skills. But the direction is clear, and you should plan with it in mind.

Date What Amazon did
Feb 2025 Launched Alexa+ with new AI-based developer tools. Its promise to existing skill developers covered customers on the original Alexa, with no matching promise for Alexa+.
2024 Ended the Alexa Developer Rewards program and the free AWS hosting credits for skills.
2022 to 2023 Launched the Radio Skills Kit, a free no-code way for stations to be on Alexa without listeners enabling anything.

In plain terms: custom skills still work and are still supported, but they are no longer where Amazon is investing. For radio specifically, Amazon’s preferred path is RSK. We think stations that rely only on a custom skill will keep losing ground on Alexa+.

What we recommend

Run your station on both RSK and your custom skill. Amazon’s own documentation says the two can coexist: listeners who already enabled your skill keep going to it, and everyone else reaches you through RSK without enabling anything.

  1. List your station in the Radio Skills Kit. It is free and needs no code. You provide the station name, up to five alternate names, call sign, frequency, city, stream URL and logo. Amazon only accepts RSK submissions from the station’s owner, so your station needs to create its own free Amazon developer account and submit the listing itself. Radioservers does not submit or manage RSK listings for stations. Changes go live within about 72 hours.
    • Why it matters: RSK stations are marked as owned and operated and rank ahead of the TuneIn listing of the same station.
    • Use all five alternate names. For “104.9 The River” that might be “The River,” “River 104.9,” “104.9 The River Tulsa,” your call letters and your slogan.
  2. Keep your custom skill. It still carries what RSK cannot: pre-roll and sponsor messages, custom greetings, “what song is this,” podcasts and multi-stream choices. When you submit to RSK, enter your existing skill’s ID in the Custom skill ID field (ask us if you need it), and set Deprecation status to No. Choosing Yes schedules your custom skill for removal.
  3. Change the phrase you promote. Say “Alexa, open [station]” instead of “Alexa, play [station].” “Open” asks for a skill specifically. “Play” asks Alexa’s music and radio search, which is where TuneIn wins. You do not need to update your skill for this.
  4. Check your TuneIn listing. If TuneIn plays your station, make sure the stream, logo and name are yours and current. A wrong or dead TuneIn stream is what many listeners will hear when routing misses.

Listeners outside your market need special attention. Both RSK and the built-in radio search favor stations near the listener. A former local listener who has moved away is best served by “open” plus your skill, or by your own app.

What to tell your listeners

Keep it short and positive, and give one phrase. Sample copy you can adapt:

On-air (:15) “Listen on your smart speaker. Just say, ‘Alexa, open 104.9 WXYZ.’ That’s ‘Alexa, open 104.9 WXYZ.’”

Website or social post “Amazon has updated Alexa, and some listeners are getting the wrong station. For the best results, say ‘Alexa, open [station name].’ If Alexa still plays another station, make sure our skill is enabled in the Alexa app under More, then Skills & Games. Still stuck? Tell us what you said and what played, and we will pass it to Amazon.”

When a listener reports a problem, ask for:

  • The exact words they said
  • What played instead
  • The date and time
  • A screenshot from the Alexa app under Settings, then Activity or History, showing what Alexa heard

Is it worth keeping your paid skill?:

We can’t answer that question for you, so we’ll just share that over 600 million Alexa devices are in use today. Only generation 2 and newer support Alexa + and the number of those who use Alexa + is not disclosed by Amazon (+ requires a subscription or Prime). Now, not ALL problems are directly related to + but rather the way Amazon handles requests now in light of +. It is very likely that a majority of devices are still legacy devices. Over time that number may drop. You could save a few dollars per month and eliminate the skill and just rely on the Radio Skills Kit but you could be leaving skill users behind as the way they are used to listening would suddenly no longer work. RSK does not allow you to choose a custom phrase and used call letters only at this time, so they best bet is to enroll in RSK, test if out and make sure it works the way you want before considering removal of a custom skill.

Please note only the radio station owner/company/organization can file an RSK request. It is not something we can do for you.

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