Request NPR NOW on Mycroft, it plays on... Google

[msalerno]

The same thing happened to me. You need to check your audio log to see what’s playing the audio.

News Skill Audio Output Device

I decided to remove mplayer and went with VLC: $ sudo apt install vlc-bin $ sudo apt install vlc-plugin-base It no longer plays on my chomecast and the news now plays on the local speaker plugged into the headphone jack.