Listening to NPR with Alexa

Your smart speaker just got smarter. With a few simple commands, you can access the entire world of NPR – all the latest news, newest podcasts, and discussions of the day. Give any of the utterances below a try and hear NPR's critically acclaimed, audio-rich stories come alive on your Alexa-enabled device.

For additional help with using NPR on Alexa, you can contact us.

Live radio from your Member station

Say, "Alexa, play NPR" and follow the prompts to localize to your Member station. To change your station, say, "Alexa, ask NPR to change my station."

You can also say, "Alexa, play [any public radio station's name or call letters]," e.g., "Alexa, ask NPR to play WAMU" or "Alexa, ask NPR to play Nashville Public Radio."

Click here to find any NPR Member station in the country.

National and Local News from NPR

Say, "Alexa, play the news from NPR." Follow the prompts to localize to your Member station and hear your personalized mix of national and local stories. This experience is powered by NPR One, so you'll never hear the same story twice. Just log into the NPR Skill to link it with your NPR One mobile app.

You can further customize your listening with voice commands.

For Alexa devices with a screen

Say, "Alexa, play the news from NPR" to receive our visual newscast. Hosted by the same voices you know and love from our daily audio newscast, the NPR visual newscast is updated hourly every weekday morning with the latest headlines and footage for a quick look at what's going on in the news, now.

NPR news alerts

Say, "Alexa, turn on NPR notifications" or click here to keep on top of breaking news and top stories from NPR. When NPR sends out an alert, your Amazon Echo or Echo Dot will blink with a yellow light, and Echo Show devices will display the headline.

Say, "Alexa, what's my notification?" to hear your device read the alert. It'll then ask if you want to hear more about the alert topic.

"Alexa, turn off NPR notifications" turns NPR notifications off.

Podcasts

Say, "Alexa, ask NPR to play the [Podcast Name] podcast" to hear the most recent episode of any podcast.

Click here to see all of NPR's podcasts.

Routines

NPR Routines are a great way for you to get Alexa to do a bunch of different things (including playing NPR!) with one command. Here are three routines you can try and customize to fit your needs (make sure you have the NPR skill enabled first):

Wake Up with NPR
After dismissing your morning alarm, you'll hear the date and the weather, followed by news from NPR. Click here to use this routine.

Start My Day with NPR
When you say "Alexa, start my day with NPR," you'll hear the weather, followed by the news from NPR. Click here to use this routine.

NPR on Schedule
Plays the news from NPR at whatever time you choose. Click here to use this routine.

Credits:

Videos

Created by NPR's marketing creative team

Creative Director: Billy Candela, Senior Copywriter: Sergio Romano, Senior Marketing Associate: Mina Tavakoli

With audio mix by Josh Rogosin and original music by Ramtin Arablouei

Animation by Laundry

Creative Director: PJ Richardson, Managing Director: James Sweigert, Executive Producer: Garrett Braren, Producer: Meredith Panicara, Edit and Sound Design: Justin Freedman, Design and Animation: Yongmin Park, Yoojin Seol, and Xirui Liu

Featured NPR audio clips

Guy Raz - How I Built This, Korva Coleman - NPR newscast, Ailsa Chang - "After Hurricane Katrina, Many People Found New Strength," as featured on All Things Considered, John Sepulveda - The California Report from KQED

Landing Page

Page Editor: Justin Lucas, UI Developer: Todd Welstein, Senior Copywriter: Sergio Romano, Designer: Erin Culliney, Smart Audio Consultant: Ha-Hoa Hamano, Artwork: Laundry