Alexa Commands for News

If you’re a news junkie, Alexa has got you covered with an easy way to keep up with your interests, whether that’s global news, sports, or a niche topic. Thanks to Amazon’s flash briefings feature, you can customise your daily report so that Alexa plays your favourite bulletins, with the ability to skip between them easily.

In this article, I’ll share all the Alexa news commands for the UK along with how to customise your listening experience. If you’d like to find out more about what Alexa can do, see my full list of Alexa commands.

Can Alexa Read the News?

Yes, Alexa can read the daily news through your Amazon Echo smart speaker or the phone app. You can use the Flash Briefing feature to customise which news bulletins Alexa reads to you and you can skip forward or back at any time.

Flash Briefings are a selection of news briefings that you can curate and ask Alexa to read to you by saying “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”, or you can include it as part of an Alexa routine to automatically read it to you each day.

To set up your customised flash briefing:

• Open the Alexa app and head to the ‘More’ tab.
• Select ‘Settings’ and choose ‘Flash Briefing’.
• Select which news sources you’d like to add, you may need to enable a skill for some of them

Your news briefings will play in the order you have select them, you can rearrange the order by tapping ‘Edit’ and dragging them around.

Some examples of flash briefings that I like include BBC, Sky News, Sky Sports, The Guardian, ESPN, Met Office, local police forces across the UK, Buzzfeed, and more.

Alexa News Commands (UK)

Here are all the Alexa commands for news in the UK:

• “Alexa, what’s in the news?”
• “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”
• “Alexa, next/back.” – Move between your flash briefings or bulletins
• “Alexa, play BBC news.”
• “Alexa, play Sky news”.
• “Alexa, play Daily Mail news”
• “Alexa, play LBC news”
• “Alexa, play news from [station].”
• “Alexa, what’s the latest with the coronavirus?”
• “Alexa, what’s the traffic like?”
• “Alexa, what’s my commute look like?”

These are the news bulletins currently available in the UK, you can also play news from several US news providers such as CNN, Fox, NPR, and more.

You can also hear shorter briefings from other stations by saying, “Alexa, play news from [station]”. These will be read by Alexa rather than a human presented and are the same ones that feature in the flash briefing.

What News Channels Can I Get on Alexa in the UK?

If you’re interested in tuning in to a news radio station rather than a pre-recorded bulletin, Alexa has a few news channels you can listen to:

1. BBC World Service News
2. LBC News
3. LBC News London
4. Times Radio
5. talkRadio
6. BBC Radio 4
7. BBC Radio 5 Live

To listen to one of these, say “Alexa, play [radio station].

What About Sports News?

If you’re more into John Cena than Jon Snow, then the sports news might be of more interest to you. Here are a few Alexa commands for sports in the UK:

• “Alexa, play news from BBC Sport.”
• “Alexa, play news from Sky Sports.”
• “Alexa, play talkSport” – starts the talkSport radio station
• “Alexa, what’s the latest premier league scores?”
• “Alexa, what is the score of the [team] game?” – for live score
• “Alexa, who is winning the [team] and [team] game?” – for live score
• “Alexa, what was the score between [team] and [team]?”
• “Alexa, when do [team] play next?”
• “Alexa, did [team] win?”
• “Alexa, how many goals has [player] scored this season?”

Alexa Commands for Weather

Finally, here are some Alexa commands to help you keep up to date with the latest weather forecast for your area.

• “Alexa, what’s the weather like?”
• “Alexa, what’s the weather like in [location]?”
• “Alexa, what temperature is it right now?”
• “Alexa, will it rain today?”
• “Alexa, will I need an umbrella today?”
• “Alexa, what will the weather be like tomorrow in [location]?”
• “Alexa, what’s the weather going to be like this weekend?”
• “Alexa, show me the weekend forecast.” – Use this with your Echo Show to see on the screen

Where you don’t specify a time or location, Alexa will default to the current time and your current location.