Thanks to everyone for the responses..
I have found that the way to get reliable continuous playback is with the "tunein" addon in kodi on the android box. Even the tunein apk on the Samsung smart tv or the tunein apk installed directly on the android box can not.. I have many internet radio apps and all have this problem.. squeezebox.com server, vtuner on yamaha avr, radioIO app on android box all same problem.. Sucs, in the middle east i had no issues at all..
Cheers