Summary

  • Ofcom’s proposed code would protect a listener’s spoken request, a station’s preferred delivery method, and an uninterrupted stream.
  • The code leaves onboarding, new delivery methods and contracts between stations and aggregators outside its current scope.

The radio rulebook begins at the play button. Everything that must happen before a station appears in the right voice assistant’s menu belongs to a different conversation.

Ofcom’s consultation, published on 14 September, proposes recommended actions for designated radio selection services: voice assistants brought under Part 6 of the Media Act 2024. Responses are due by 5pm on 9 November. A final code is expected in spring 2027; Ofcom proposes three months for services to comply after it is finalised.

The proposed duties are concrete. A listener should be able to name a relevant internet radio service and start it by voice. If a station is available by more than one route, its provider can choose the preferred method. Once the stream starts, the assistant should not interrupt it or put advertising ahead of it without the station’s agreement. A brief identification of the station or a service carrying it is allowed; so are interruptions caused by the listener’s own settings, such as an alarm or call.

That last distinction puts a sharp line through the commercial pitch. The listener’s request is not an invitation to insert a new ad break. The station’s preferred route is not a decorative preference field. And the assistant cannot charge a station for doing the work the statute requires, including through non-cash demands such as advertising inventory or user data.

Following the code’s recommended actions would count as compliance. A provider can use another approach, but it does not receive that automatic treatment; Ofcom may investigate if it has concerns. The code therefore gives platforms a practical safe harbour, not a compulsory wiring diagram.

The boundary is the story. Ofcom’s draft does not set onboarding terms, require an assistant to build a new delivery method, or regulate a station’s contract with a radio aggregator. An aggregator may still charge for access through its own service. Ofcom’s list also matters: a service must qualify as a UK radio stream and its provider must opt in before the access duties attach. The proposed one-month window for making a newly listed station selectable starts only after it enters that list.

So the listener gets a protected command, while the route into the command’s catalogue remains a layered negotiation. The government’s designation regulations are still the next fact that can change which services fall under the regime. Its July consultation on the proposed designation closed on 9 September; the regulations have not yet been made.

Sources: Ofcom’s draft-code consultation, the draft Code, Media Act 2024, section 48, and the Government’s designation consultation.