Our apps

Once you download our apps or enable our Alexa Skill you’ll be invited to register and create an account. Signing up one time will allow you to use both our apps as much as you want. You will be kept logged in after signing in for the first time. Once you’ve signed up to one app, you will automatically be logged in to our other app, if you want to use both.

If you need help, you can ask anyone to register you using this form. Alternatively please get in touch via dave@blind.org.uk and we can help you get started.

There are more than 290 publications on our app, but not all areas have a local talking newspaper, and some aren't available on the app. If you can’t find yours by searching by name or geographical area, please get in touch via dave@blind.org.uk. 

Our team will be able to confirm if your newspaper is on our app. Any local talking newspapers that aren’t yet on our app are welcome to get in touch and we are very happy to add them. 

There are more than 70,000 radio stations on our app. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, please get in touch via dave@blind.org.uk. 

If we don’t have the station you’re looking for, we may be able to get a stream and add this to our app, but this depends on the station. 

Once your device is set up and connected to the internet, you can enable our skill by simply saying: "Alexa, enable Talking Newspapers". You should then follow the prompts given by Alexa. 

In some instances, you may need to enable the Skill using the Alexa app on your smart device. You can do this by opening the Alexa app and selecting: More > Skills and Games > Search > Talking Newspapers > Enable. 

Once the Skill is enabled, just say "Alexa open Talking Newspaper” to get started.  

You can also access any of our Talking Newspapers by saying (for example) "Alexa Ask Talking Newspaper for Liverpool Talking Newspaper" or any publication name. 

The first time you use the skill you’ll be asked for a Talking Newspaper name or the name of a town or city in the UK. 

Alexa will only find the newspaper under the exact name it has in our app. You can add your own abbreviations or nicknames for your favourite publications.  

You can also search by geographical area. There are currently 555 area locations within the Skill. Again, users can add their own abbreviations or nicknames for locations if desired. 

If you want any support with this, please contact dave@blind.org.uk who would be happy to help you.

If you stop listening and come back within 24-hours, Alexa will ask if you want to carry on listening. Just say “yes” to carry on, or “no” to browse other publications. 

You can skip content by saying "Alexa, next track" or “Alexa, previous track" to move between tracks where there is more than one track for the publication you are listening to. 

You can fast forward or rewind by saying: "Alexa, ask Talking Newspaper to forward/rewind (any number up to 60) seconds".  The audio will now carry on from this new position. 

You can say “Alexa, pause", "Alexa, stop" and "Alexa, play” to stop and start playing content. 

Simply say "Alexa, cancel" to exit from the Skill. 

Local talking newspapers can upload their content to our app via our content upload page. If you are a talking newspaper which is not currently available on our app and would like to start, please email dave@blind.org.uk and we will get this all set up for you.