NPR to offer more news to Amazon Alexa listeners

NPR has entered a new partnership with Amazon that will increase the amount of content to listeners with Alexa-enabled devices. Requests to “play the news” on Alexa have defaulted to the most recent NPR hourly newscast. Going forward, this voice skill will offer a continuous listening experience that plays other national and local content from NPR and member stations following the initial hourly newscast.

New Alexa users will be prompted for a source when they say “play the news.” If they reply “NPR,” the user will need to supply a zip code and confirm their local station. Current users will be able to access the lean-back news with the command “Alexa, play news from NPR.”

NPR built the long-form news experience. It is powered by the NPR One systems and editorial workflows. The expanded news feature is expected to slowly roll out to all Alexa-enabled devices by Monday, April 15.