Listening To WKAR On Your Amazon Alexa

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

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

Print or download a PDF of all the WKAR-friendly commands currently available on Alexa.

Live radio from your Member station

Say, "Alexa, play WKAR" 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 WKAR."

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 WKAR" 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.

WKAR news alerts

Say, "Alexa, turn on WKAR notifications" or click here to keep on top of breaking news and top stories from WKAR. When WKAR 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 WKAR notifications" turns NPR notifications off.

Podcasts

Say, "Alexa, ask WKAR 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 havethe NPR skill enabled first):

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

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

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