TED Radio Hour

TED Radio Hour is an American radio show and podcast produced by NPR and TED, hosted by Manoush Zomorodi and broadcast since April 2012. Each one-hour episode investigates a single theme through recorded stage presentations combined with in-depth interviews.

The show began broadcasting on April 27, 2012, as a collaboration between public radio network NPR and the nonprofit conference organization TED. Television journalist Alison Stewart hosted the initial ten-episode run during spring 2012. Production shifted toward an ongoing weekly schedule in 2013, with Guy Raz stepping in as host and editorial director. Under this revised structure, the audio team layered original ambient sound design beneath conference excerpts and studio conversations. Manoush Zomorodi succeeded Raz as host in March 2020 after her appointment was announced in November 2019.

Episodes organize around central concepts such as artistic perception, public health discoveries, architecture, and behavioral biology. A typical episode weaves together three or four different conference talks, connecting the stage speeches through follow-up conversations recorded directly with the original speakers. Sound designers integrate archival audio clips, field recordings, and music tracks between spoken passages. Carried by more than 600 public radio stations across the United States, the program distributes globally as an on-demand podcast feed through digital listening platforms.

The service iTunes named the series the Best New Audio Podcast of 2012 following its initial broadcast run. At the 2018 Webby Awards, the show won the award for Best Science and Education Podcast in the general series category. The Podcast Academy awarded the program an Ambie Award in 2023 for Best Knowledge, Science or Tech Podcast, following a nomination in the same category in 2022. In 2018, the program also received a People's Choice Podcast Award in the science and education category.