Playing radio on HomePods through HomeKit automation

The HomePods in our kitchen are set to play Radio New Zealand National when either my wife or I return home.

I set this automation up when I had an Apple Music subscription. But I found that I only used the subscription to play radio, since I have all the music I want downloaded from the iTunes Store or my own LP/CD library. Even after the subscription lapsed, the automation kept working, which pleased me.

The bedroom HomePod is set to fire up at 5:50am on weekdays with the same radio station - until it didn't. For some weird reason it stopped working the other day. I did a factory reset on it and it started working fine again. Except for the automation. When I went in to patch it, I found that Play Audio was greyed out. Yes - I know why - I don't have a subscription, so please don't go down that path.

I find it frustrating that to play something for free, through either TuneIn or iHeart, I have to subscribe to a service I don't require. I will probably end up taking out the subscription for a month for no other reason than for setting up my working-day alarm, which is really such a waste of time and money. As has been said before by - umm - you know who, "The subscription model of buying music is bankrupt. I think you could make available the Second Coming in a subscription model and it might not be successful." It's fine for many, but it's not universal.

Anyone got any other suggestions?