Podcast Host Contact Scraper — Email, Website & Socials

Find podcast host contact details at scale for PR, guesting and sponsorship outreach: host email, website, socials, category, author and RSS feed. Search by topic (via iTunes) or paste RSS feed URLs — because podcast feeds carry a public owner email, host email is present for ~90% of shows.

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What This Actor Does

This Actor turns podcast topics or feeds into a contact & outreach dataset. For each show it returns:

• Contact — host/owner email, show website
• Socials — Instagram, Twitter/X, Facebook, YouTube (from the feed)
• Show — podcast name, author/publisher, owner name, category, language, episodic/serial, episode count, cover art
• Source — RSS feed URL, Apple Podcasts URL, iTunes ID

Search by keyword/topic to discover podcasts (via the iTunes catalog), or paste specific RSS feed URLs — the Actor reads each show's feed and returns one clean row per podcast.

✅ Why the email fill-rate is high

Podcast RSS feeds include an <itunes:owner><email> field that Apple requires for a show to be listed. That email is public and present for the large majority of podcasts (~90%) — so unlike social platforms, you get a real host contact on almost every result.

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Why Use This

• Real host emails. ~90% of shows expose an owner email in their feed — a direct line for guest pitches, PR, ads and sponsorship, no guessing.
• Discover + enrich in one. Search a topic to find relevant shows, then get each one's contact and metadata automatically.
• Outreach-ready fields. Email, website, socials, category and episode count let you target and personalize at scale.
• Fast and cheap. Reads the public iTunes API and only the RSS feed header (not every episode) — no login, no browser.

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Quick Start

Run it in the console (no code)

1. Add Search terms (topics/keywords, e.g. technology, true crime, marketing) — the Actor finds matching podcasts.
2. Optionally paste specific RSS feed URLs to target exact shows.
3. Set Max per term / Max total, click Start, then export as JSON, CSV, Excel or HTML, or push to Google Sheets, a webhook or a database.

Run it via API (Python)

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")

run_input = {
    "searchTerms": ["marketing", "startup"],
    "maxPerTerm": 100,
}

run = client.actor("YOUR_USERNAME/podcast-contact-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

for p in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(p["podcastName"], "·", p["email"] or "-", "·", p["category"])

Build a podcast-guesting outreach list (Python)

run = client.actor("YOUR_USERNAME/podcast-contact-scraper").call(run_input={
    "searchTerms": ["real estate investing"],
    "maxPerTerm": 200,
})
leads = [p for p in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items()
         if p.get("email")]
print(len(leads), "shows with a host email")
for p in leads[:10]:
    print(f'{p["podcastName"]} | {p["email"]} | {p["website"]}')

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Input Parameters

Field	Type	Description
searchTerms	array	Topics/keywords to discover podcasts via iTunes.
feedUrls	array	Direct podcast RSS feed URLs to scrape specific shows.
country	string	Two-letter iTunes store country for search (default US).
maxPerTerm	integer	Max podcasts per search term (iTunes caps at 200). Default 50.
maxItems	integer	Optional hard cap on total podcasts. 0 = no limit.
proxyConfiguration	object	Apify Proxy. Datacenter is enough (iTunes & RSS are public).

Provide search terms, feed URLs, or both.

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Output

Each podcast is one record:

{
  "podcastName": "WSJ Tech News Briefing",
  "author": "The Wall Street Journal",
  "ownerName": "The Wall Street Journal",
  "email": "podcasts@dowjones.com",
  "website": "https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/tech-news-briefing",
  "category": "Tech News",
  "language": "en",
  "type": "episodic",
  "episodes": 1200,
  "instagram": "", "twitter": "wsj", "facebook": "", "youtube": "",
  "artwork": "https://...600x600.jpg",
  "feedUrl": "https://video-api.wsj.com/podcast/rss/...",
  "appleUrl": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/...",
  "podcastId": "1234567890"
}

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Use Cases

1. Podcast guesting & PR outreach

Find shows in your niche and pitch yourself or clients as a guest — with the host's real email and website in hand.

2. Sponsorship & ad sales

Build target lists of podcasts by topic and reach the people who sell ad slots — email, site and category included.

3. Media & influencer databases

Enrich a media/creator CRM with podcast host contacts, categories and reach signals (episode count, language).

4. Market & competitive research

Map the podcast landscape for a topic — who's publishing, in what category and language, how active (episode count).

5. Agency lead generation

Podcasters are buyers of editing, hosting, marketing and booking services — a targeted lead source with direct contacts.

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Tips

• Discovery vs targeting: use searchTerms to find shows by topic; use feedUrls when you already know the shows.
• Broaden reach: add several related terms (e.g. startup, founder, venture capital) — results are deduped across terms.
• country switches the iTunes catalog (e.g. GB, DE) for local podcasts.
• Email is ~90% but not 100% — a few shows omit the owner email; you still get website and socials there.
• Schedule it with Apify Schedules to keep a fresh podcast-contact list.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Why do podcasts have host emails when social platforms don't? Apple requires an owner email (<itunes:owner>) in a podcast's RSS feed for it to be listed, and that field is public. So a real host email is available for the large majority of shows.

Do I need any account or key? No. The iTunes Search API and RSS feeds are public — no login, cookies or key.

How are podcasts discovered? By keyword/topic through the public iTunes podcast catalog, or directly from RSS feed URLs you provide.

What export formats are supported? JSON, CSV, Excel, HTML, or via API — plus Google Sheets, webhooks, Make and Zapier.

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Legal & Responsible Use

This Actor collects only publicly available podcast metadata (including the owner contact email that Apple requires in public feeds) for research, PR and business use. You are responsible for how you use the data. Please:

• Comply with applicable data-protection and anti-spam laws (GDPR/CCPA, CAN-SPAM) when contacting hosts.
• Honor opt-out requests and send only relevant, non-abusive outreach.
• Do not use the data for spam, harassment, or any unlawful purpose.
• Use reasonable request volumes and scheduling.

This project is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Apple, iTunes, or any podcast or hosting platform. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.