NPR Station Finder Service

Name: NPR Station Finder Service API
Brand: NPR Station Finder Service
Availability: InStock

★ Only Publicly Available OpenAPI DocumentMediaAudio Processingoauth22 EndpointsREST

For Agents

Look up NPR member station metadata by geography or station ID, including stream URLs and donation pages. Two endpoints under /v3/stations covering search and detail retrieval.

Connect the NPR Station Finder Service to your agent

Jentic One is a self-hosted execution layer for AI agents. It lets your agent call the NPR Station Finder Service, or any other public or private API you need. You set the rules, the agent never sees your credentials, and every call is logged.

Install Jentic One Beta (Self-Hosted)

Jentic One Host machine

# On the machine that will host your Jentic One instance:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jentic/jentic-one/main/tools/install.sh | sh

Agent machine

# On the machine where your agent runs (keep this separate from the instance):
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jentic/jentic-one/main/tools/install.sh | sh
jentic register       # connects your agent to your Jentic One instance

Jentic One is in public beta. The setup above keeps your agent separate from the instance, which is what you want before using real credentials: an agent running as the same OS user as Jentic One can read its stored keys directly. Just evaluating? A single local install is fine to start. See the secure deployment guide for the tiers.

Capabilities

What an agent can do with NPR Station Finder Service API.

Search NPR member stations by latitude, longitude, ZIP code, city, or state

Retrieve a specific station's full profile via its unique station ID

Surface live audio stream URLs for each member station's HD and standard broadcasts

Expose station donation and pledge URLs for in-app member support flows

GET STARTED

Start building with NPR Station Finder Service API

Explore with Jentic

View OpenAPI Document

Jentic publishes the only available OpenAPI document for NPR Station Finder Service, keeping it validated and agent-ready.

The NPR Station Finder Service lets clients look up NPR member station information by location, frequency, or station ID. It returns details about each station's broadcast streams, programming schedules, member affiliations, and donation URLs. Built for NPR One and partner applications, the service exposes two endpoints under /v3/stations and is a thin wrapper around NPR's authoritative member station registry.

Use Cases

Patterns agents use NPR Station Finder Service API for, with concrete tasks.

★ Geo-located Station Lookup for Voice Apps

Voice assistants and smart-speaker skills use the Station Finder to resolve a listener's location into a specific NPR member station, returning its primary live stream URL so the assistant can begin playback. The /v3/stations endpoint accepts latitude and longitude pairs and returns ranked matches with stream metadata, removing the need for clients to maintain their own station database.

Call GET /v3/stations with lat=40.7128&lon=-74.0060 and extract the streamUrl for the top-ranked WNYC result

Member Pledge and Donation Routing

Member-supported audio apps surface donation links scoped to each listener's home station. The Station Finder returns a donationUrl per station, letting product teams route pledge clicks to the correct local affiliate without hardcoded mappings. This is critical during pledge drives when traffic must reach the right station's fundraising portal.

Resolve station ID 305 via GET /v3/stations/{stationId} and return the donationUrl for the in-app pledge button

AI Agent Audio Discovery via Jentic

AI agents that recommend or play public radio content use Jentic to discover the Station Finder, search for stations matching a user's intent, and execute the lookup with isolated credentials. Through Jentic, an agent can resolve a phrase like "play my local NPR station" into a concrete /v3/stations call without browsing NPR developer docs.

Use Jentic to search for 'find local NPR station' and execute the resulting /v3/stations operation with the user's lat/lon

Key Endpoints

2 endpoints — the npr station finder service lets clients look up npr member station information by location, frequency, or station id.

METHOD

PATH

DESCRIPTION

GET

/v3/stations

Search NPR member stations by location or other criteria

GET

/v3/stations/{stationId}

Retrieve a single station's full profile by ID

GET

/v3/stations

Search NPR member stations by location or other criteria

GET

/v3/stations/{stationId}

Retrieve a single station's full profile by ID

Why though Jentic?

Three things that make agents converge on Jentic-routed access.

Credential isolation

NPR OAuth client credentials are stored encrypted in the Jentic vault. Agents receive scoped access tokens for the station finder scopes only — raw client secrets never enter the agent's context.

Intent-based discovery

Agents search Jentic by intent (e.g., 'find local NPR station by ZIP') and Jentic returns the matching /v3/stations operation with its query schema, so the agent can call the right endpoint without reading NPR developer docs.

Time to first call

Direct NPR integration: 1-2 days for OAuth client registration, token refresh handling, and station response parsing. Through Jentic: under 30 minutes — search, load, execute.

Related APIs

Alternatives and complements available in the Jentic catalogue.

Alternative

NPR Station Finder

Duplicate v3 station finder spec hosted under a shorter slug

Choose this when working with NPR's primary station-finder slug rather than the npr-station-finder-service alias.

Complementary

NPR Sponsorship Service

Returns sponsorship messages to play alongside NPR audio streams

Pair with Station Finder when an agent needs to insert sponsor content into a stream resolved from a station lookup.

Alternative

Listen Notes

Podcast and audio search across many publishers, not just NPR

Choose Listen Notes when the agent needs broader podcast discovery beyond NPR's member station network.

FAQs

Specific to using NPR Station Finder Service API through Jentic.

What authentication does the NPR Station Finder Service use?

The NPR Station Finder Service uses OAuth 2.0 authorization code flow against https://authorization.api.npr.org/v2/token. Tokens are scoped to identity.readonly, listening.readonly, and related NPR One scopes. Through Jentic, these client credentials are stored encrypted in the vault and never appear in agent prompt context.

Can I search for NPR stations by latitude and longitude with the NPR Station Finder Service?

Yes. GET /v3/stations accepts geographic query parameters and returns ranked station matches with their stream URLs, call signs, and donation pages.

What are the rate limits for the NPR Station Finder Service?

NPR's developer portal at https://dev.npr.org does not publish a fixed rate limit on this service, but partner applications are expected to cache station results because the underlying data changes infrequently.

How do I look up a single NPR station through Jentic?

Search Jentic for 'NPR station details by ID', load the GET /v3/stations/{stationId} schema, and execute with the numeric station ID. The flow is: pip install jentic, then await client.search, load, and execute.

Is the NPR Station Finder Service free to use?

Access requires registering an OAuth client at https://dev.npr.org. NPR does not charge for the API itself but restricts use to apps that comply with their NPR One Enterprise terms.