Podchaser Scraper — Podcast Contacts, Ratings, Audience & Lead-Gen Data

Scrape Podchaser.com at scale and turn the world's largest podcast database into a clean, ready-to-use dataset: show titles, descriptions, categories, ratings & reviews, episode metrics, follower counts, hosting providers, hosts & guests, network affiliations, RSS feeds — and, the field that pays for itself, a verified contact email for the show, pulled straight from its public RSS feed. This Podchaser scraper needs no login, no API key and no coding.

Export everything to JSON, CSV, Excel, or API in a couple of clicks.

Built for PR & media-relations teams building podcast outreach lists, podcast guesting and booking agencies, ad-network and sponsorship sales reps, media buyers, market researchers, and podcast/SaaS products that need to enrich a catalog with ratings, reach and contacts.

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🔎 Why scrape Podchaser?

Podchaser is the IMDb of podcasts: a structured, cross-platform index of millions of shows with ratings, reviews, episode credits, networks, categories and creator profiles. For anyone who sells to, pitches, or researches podcasts, that catalog is a goldmine — but the website gives you one show at a time, with no bulk export and no contact details on the page.

Doing it by hand is painfully slow: open a category, click a show, hunt for the website, chase down the RSS feed, dig the business email out of the feed, copy ratings and episode counts into a spreadsheet, repeat a thousand times. The official Podchaser API and Podchaser Pro solve the scale problem but are priced and gated for enterprises.

This Podchaser scraper automates the whole loop. Point it at a few categories (or specific shows) and it returns hundreds of de-duplicated podcast records — each one enriched with the real outreach email from the show's RSS feed — as a downloadable file you can drop straight into a CRM, cold-email tool or BI dashboard.

Common reasons people scrape Podchaser:

• Build a podcast contact database / outreach list with real business emails.
• Prospect shows for podcast advertising and sponsorship by category, ratings and following.
• Pitch founders and experts as podcast guests to relevant, active shows.
• Assemble media lists for PR campaigns, segmented by topic and reach.
• Map a niche's podcast landscape — who's active, how often they publish, who hosts.
• Enrich an existing catalog of shows with ratings, reviews, hosting and contacts.
• Source hosts, co-hosts and frequent guests for booking, recruiting or influencer work.

✨ What this Podchaser scraper does

• ✅ Discover podcasts by category — pick from News, Business, Technology, Comedy, Society & Culture, Education, Health & Fitness, Sports, Science, History, Music, TV & Film, Kids & Family and more. Each category page yields ~25 top shows and paginates automatically.
• ✅ Search by name — look up specific shows (e.g. The Daily, Serial) via the Podchaser search results page.
• ✅ Target specific shows — pass Podchaser IDs or slugs, or paste Start URLs (podcast, category or search pages) to scrape them directly.
• ✅ Verified contact email from RSS — the actor resolves each show's public RSS feed and reads the itunes:owner block to extract the real business address (e.g. podcasts@npr.org, podcast.support@bbc.co.uk, podcasts@economist.com). In the latest run, 93.7% of shows returned a contact email.
• ✅ Rich show data — title, description, cover art, categories, average rating, rating & review counts, follower count, list count, total episodes, average cadence, first/latest episode dates, hosting provider, Apple Podcasts ID, Spotify ID, iTunes author & owner.
• ✅ People & networks — hosts and guests with roles (creators), credit-count summaries, and the podcast networks / publishers a show belongs to.
• ✅ Lookalike discovery — every record carries similarPodcasts; turn on Crawl Similar to fan out from a few seeds to an entire themed niche.
• ✅ Quality filters — keep only shows above a minimum rating, review count or episode count, or only shows that have a contact email, so the export is send-ready.
• ✅ Fast & proxy-free — no headless browser and no proxy required. The latest verification run returned 494 unique podcasts in ~3.7 minutes.
• ✅ Clean exports & pre-built views — download as JSON, CSV, Excel or API, or use the ready-made Podcasts, Contacts and Creators table views.

🎯 Use cases

• Podcast guesting / booking agencies — build a deduplicated list of show name + verified email + category + followers, ready to import into Instantly, Smartlead or HubSpot.
• Sponsorship & ad sales — surface established shows (filter by rating, reviews, episodes), sort by follower count, and pitch the ones that fit your advertisers.
• PR & comms teams — pull every show in a category with hosts, networks and emails to hand a client a tailored media list in minutes.
• Market & competitive research — size and segment the podcast market by category, network, cadence and activity status.
• Catalog enrichment for podcast/SaaS products — append ratings, reach signals, hosting and contacts to a list of show IDs you already own.
• Talent & guest sourcing — the creators array is a ready database of hosts and frequent guests with roles for booking, recruiting or influencer outreach.
• Programmatic SEO — generate data-backed "Top 50 Business Podcasts" pages with ratings, episode counts and links, refreshed on a schedule.
• Lead scoring — combine review count, follower count and network affiliation into a fit score to prioritize the accounts your sales team works first.

📥 Input

Configure the run from the Apify Console form or via JSON. Everything is optional — leave it empty and the actor discovers a diverse, ready-to-use sample from popular categories.

Field	Type	Description
categorySlugs	array	Podcast categories to discover from (news, business, technology, comedy, society-culture, education, health-fitness, sports, science, history, music, tv-film, kids-family, …). Each paginates ~25 shows/page.
searchNames	array	Podcast names to look up (e.g. "The Daily", "Serial") via Podchaser search.
podcastIds	array	Specific shows by numeric Podchaser ID (90473) or slug-id (the-daily-90473).
startUrls	array	Any Podchaser URL — a podcast page, category page or search page — to scrape directly.
scrapeFullProfile	boolean	Attempt each show's detail page for the fullest record. Default on. See Pagination & scale for how listing-page data is used.
enrichContactFromRss	boolean	Fetch each show's RSS feed and extract the contact email (itunes:owner). Default on.
crawlSimilar	boolean	Expand to the "similar podcasts" of every scraped show. Default off.
similarDepth	integer	How many hops to follow when crawling similar shows (1–3).
minRating	number	Drop shows below this average rating (0–5). 0 = no filter.
minReviews	integer	Drop shows with fewer written reviews than this. 0 = no filter.
minEpisodes	integer	Drop shows with fewer published episodes than this. 0 = no filter.
requireContactEmail	boolean	Keep only shows where a contact email was found — a clean outreach list.
maxRecords	integer	Total cap on podcasts to return. 0 = unlimited.
maxPagesPerCategory	integer	Pagination depth per category (~25 shows/page).
requestDelay	integer	Delay between requests in ms (politeness).
maxConcurrency	integer	Parallel request count (1–15). 3–5 is a good balance.
proxyConfiguration	object	Optional. Podchaser's listing pages need no proxy; enable Apify Proxy only for very large runs.

Input example

{
  "categorySlugs": ["news", "business", "technology", "comedy", "society-culture"],
  "scrapeFullProfile": true,
  "enrichContactFromRss": true,
  "requireContactEmail": true,
  "minReviews": 5,
  "maxRecords": 500,
  "maxPagesPerCategory": 8,
  "maxConcurrency": 10,
  "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": false }
}

📤 Output

Each record is one podcast. The example below reflects the real fields returned by the latest verification run (values abbreviated). Download the full dataset as JSON, CSV, Excel or API, or open a pre-built Podcasts, Contacts or Creators view.

{
  "id": 90473,
  "slug": "the-daily",
  "title": "The Daily",
  "url": "https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-daily-90473",
  "description": "This is what the news should sound like. The biggest stories of our time…",
  "imageUrl": "https://image.simplecastcdn.com/images/.../the-daily.jpg",
  "rssFeedUrl": "https://feeds.simplecast.com/54nAGcIl",
  "categories": ["news", "news-politics", "society", "culture"],
  "status": "active",
  "claimed": false,
  "hostingProvider": "Simplecast",
  "applePodcastsId": "1200361736",
  "spotifyId": "3IM0lmZxpFAY7CwMuv9H4g",
  "externalIds": { "apple": "1200361736", "spotify": "3IM0lmZxpFAY7CwMuv9H4g" },
  "author": "The New York Times",
  "ownerName": "The New York Times",
  "ratingAverage": 4.35,
  "ratingCount": 1884,
  "reviewCount": 612,
  "followerCount": 45213,
  "listCount": 318,
  "numberOfEpisodes": 2680,
  "daysBetweenEpisodes": 1,
  "firstEpisodeDate": "2017-01-30 10:00:00",
  "latestEpisodeDate": "2026-11-01 11:00:00",
  "addedToPodchaser": "2017-02-01 08:14:00",
  "profileUpdatedAt": "2026-10-30 04:22:11",
  "networks": [{ "id": 197, "title": "The New York Times", "url": null, "verified": false }],
  "creators": [
    { "id": 25791, "name": "Michael Barbaro", "role": "Host", "pcid": "042238", "socialAccounts": [] }
  ],
  "creatorRoleCounts": [{ "role": "host", "count": 2 }],
  "similarPodcasts": [
    { "id": 14530, "slug": "up-first", "title": "Up First" },
    { "id": 2262, "slug": "ted-talks-daily", "title": "TED Talks Daily" }
  ],
  "contactEmail": "podcasts@nytimes.com",
  "contactEmailsAll": ["podcasts@nytimes.com"],
  "ownerNameFromRss": "The New York Times",
  "discoveredFrom": "category:news",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-11-02T00:15:00.000Z"
}

Field reference

Field	Description
id, slug, title, url	Canonical Podchaser identity (100% in testing).
description, imageUrl	Show description and cover artwork (100%).
categories	Podchaser category slugs (100%).
rssFeedUrl	Public RSS feed URL (100%) — the source of the contact email.
contactEmail	Primary outreach email from the RSS itunes:owner block (93.7%).
contactEmailsAll	Every distinct email found in the feed header.
ownerNameFromRss, ownerName, author	Owner / author / business name (≈90–100%).
ratingAverage, ratingCount, reviewCount	Ratings and reviews (≈100%).
followerCount, listCount	Podchaser following and list appearances (100%).
numberOfEpisodes, daysBetweenEpisodes	Episode count and average cadence (≈97–100%).
firstEpisodeDate, latestEpisodeDate, startDate	Feed/episode dates (latest 100%; startDate present when available).
addedToPodchaser, profileUpdatedAt	When indexed / last refreshed — a freshness signal (100%).
hostingProvider	Detected hosting platform — Acast, Simplecast, Megaphone… (≈86%).
applePodcastsId, spotifyId, externalIds	Cross-platform IDs (≈97–100%).
networks	Networks / publishers the show belongs to (present when available, ≈54%).
creators, creatorRoleCounts	Hosts & guests with roles, and credit-count summaries (≈78–81%).
similarPodcasts	Podchaser "similar shows" for lookalike expansion (100%).
discoveredFrom, scrapedAt	Provenance (which category/URL surfaced it) and UTC scrape timestamp.

The record schema also includes detail-page-only fields — website, socialLinks (Twitter/X, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube with follower counts), sponsors, latestEpisode, language, languageCode, explicit, descriptionHtml, avgEpisodeMinutes, reachVerified and reachProvider. These populate when a show's Podchaser detail page is reachable; Podchaser currently serves individual detail pages behind an anti-bot challenge, so for the default no-proxy run these may be empty while every field in the table above is delivered. See the FAQ.

🔁 Pagination & scale

Discovery is fully paginated. For each category the actor walks pages round-robin (…/categories/<slug>/podcasts?page=N), pulling ~25 shows per page up to maxPagesPerCategory, and interleaves across your chosen categories so a multi-category run returns a diverse, mixed sample rather than exhausting one category first. Every podcast is de-duplicated by its numeric Podchaser ID, so you never get the same show twice — the latest run returned 494 unique records with zero duplicates.

Each show's rich data is read from Podchaser's own embedded JSON state on the listing/search pages (not brittle HTML scraping). The optional detail-page visit (scrapeFullProfile) adds the extra social/sponsor fields when reachable; when Podchaser's anti-bot challenge blocks the detail page over plain HTTP, the actor automatically serves the full listing-page data instead — so runs stay fast and cheap and you still get every field listed above. Scale is controlled by maxRecords (total cap) and maxPagesPerCategory (depth per category); set maxRecords: 0 for unlimited.

⚙️ How to use

1. Open the actor on the Apify Console and click Try for free.
2. Pick one or more categories (or add searchNames, podcastIds, or startUrls).
3. Leave Scrape Full Profile and Enrich Contact Email From RSS on, set maxRecords, and (optionally) turn on Only Podcasts With a Contact Email.
4. Click Start and watch records stream into the dataset.
5. Export as JSON, CSV or Excel, or open the Contacts view for an outreach-ready list.
6. Automate it: trigger via the Apify API, run it on a schedule, or pipe results into Make, Zapier, Google Sheets or a webhook / your CRM.

💡 Tips

• Clean outreach list: keep Enrich Contact Email From RSS on and turn on Only Podcasts With a Contact Email, then export the Contacts view straight into your cold-email tool.
• Diverse sample fast: pass several categories with maxRecords and a modest maxPagesPerCategory — the round-robin keeps the mix balanced.
• Quality shows only: set minReviews and minEpisodes to skip trailer-only or dormant feeds; these filters run on the listing seed, so they save work before the RSS fetch.
• Lookalike expansion: start with 10–20 of your best shows in podcastIds, enable Crawl Similar with similarDepth: 1–2, and set a generous maxRecords.
• Speed vs. politeness: maxConcurrency 8–10 with requestDelay ~350 ms is fast and stable; lower both to be gentler on very large jobs.

❓ FAQ

Is scraping Podchaser legal? The actor collects publicly available information from Podchaser category/search pages and public podcast RSS feeds. It does not access private or authenticated content. You are responsible for using the data in line with Podchaser's Terms, RSS publishers' terms, and applicable laws (e.g. GDPR / CAN-SPAM for outreach) — always honor opt-out requests.

Do I need a Podchaser account, API key or Pro subscription? No. The actor reads public pages — no login, no key, no Pro plan.

How many results can I get and how fast? The latest verification run returned 494 unique podcasts in ~3.7 minutes (no proxy). Scale is bounded by how many categories you choose and maxPagesPerCategory; set maxRecords: 0 for unlimited. Discovery returns ~25 shows per category page.

Where do the contact emails come from? From each show's own public RSS feed — the itunes:owner → itunes:email address publishers list for business inquiries. Only the feed header is downloaded, so it's fast. In the latest run 93.7% of shows returned a contact email.

Do I need proxies? No. Podchaser serves its listing and search pages over plain HTTPS, so the actor runs proxy-free. A proxy is optional and only useful for very large jobs that might hit per-IP rate limits.

Why are website, socialLinks or sponsors sometimes empty? Those fields live only on a show's detail page, which Podchaser currently guards with an AWS WAF anti-bot challenge that plain HTTP can't pass. The actor detects this and automatically serves the rich listing-page data instead, so you still get titles, categories, ratings, reviews, episodes, followers, hosting, IDs, creators, networks, similar shows and the RSS contact email. The detail-only fields populate when the detail page is reachable.

Which export formats are supported? Is there an API? JSON, CSV, Excel and a full REST API (every Apify actor is API-addressable), plus the pre-built Podcasts, Contacts and Creators table views.

How fresh is the data? Live. Every run scrapes Podchaser in real time; profileUpdatedAt and latestEpisodeDate tell you how recently each show was active.

Can I filter by rating, reviews or episode count? Yes — minRating, minReviews and minEpisodes drop shows below your thresholds, and requireContactEmail keeps only shows with a found email.

Can I scrape one specific show? Yes — put its ID or slug in podcastIds, or paste its URL in startUrls. The numeric ID is canonical, so even a wrong slug resolves correctly from a listing/search page.

🔗 Related scrapers

Building a full creator-economy, media or lead-gen dataset? Pair the Podchaser scraper with:

• Discogs Scraper — releases, artists, labels and marketplace pricing from Discogs.
• SoundCloud Scraper — tracks, artists, play counts and creator profiles from SoundCloud.
• Genius Scraper — songs, lyrics, artists and producer credits from Genius.
• Mastodon Scraper — fediverse creator profiles and contact links for outreach.
• RemoteOK Scraper — remote job listings with skills and salary data.

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Ready to build your podcast contact database? Click Try for free, pick a few categories, and export a clean, email-enriched list of shows in minutes. Need a custom field, per-episode data or a different source? Open an issue — happy to extend.

⚖️ Disclaimer

This actor extracts publicly accessible data from Podchaser.com and public podcast RSS feeds for legitimate research, journalism and B2B outreach. It does not access private, gated or authenticated content. You are solely responsible for complying with Podchaser's Terms of Service, RSS publishers' terms, and all applicable data-protection and anti-spam laws (including GDPR and CAN-SPAM) when using the data — especially for email outreach. Always honor opt-out requests and obtain consent where required.