Alexa Radio Skills Get Simplified

Amazon recently announced the availability of the Alexa Radio Skills Kit, or RSK, console for radio providers.

Radio World reports the aim of the skills kit is to let radio content providers enable that good experience without needing to deal with code or third parties. Providers submit their station data, and Alexa Radio Skills Kit Console handles subsequent steps related to publishing and discovery.

After a station is onboarded, it becomes available after a period of 72 hours on Alexa-enabled devices to customers. Customers then can ask Alexa to play a station by name, alternate name, call sign or frequency, such as The Vibe, Vibe 102.7, KBBQ or 102.7 FM. Listeners won’t need to have a station’s skill enabled to listen.

Customers won’t have to remember to launch a skill. In addition, the kit supports location-based search so that when a customer asks for a station, Alexa automatically considers stations nearby that match their request.

Radio World contacted Amazon to ask for more info; a spokesperson answered questions by email. Read it here