BBC News Scraper

What does BBC News Scraper do?

BBC News Scraper collects the articles that BBC News lists in its public news feeds. Each row has the headline, a short summary, the author, the publication and update time, the section, topic tags, the lead image and the article link. Choose one or more sections, keep only articles that mention your topic or were published in the last hours, and turn on monitor mode to receive only articles you have not seen before. Optionally the Actor also reads the article text.

Why use BBC News Scraper?

• Follow BBC News coverage of any topic without opening the site.
• Filter by section, topic words and how recently an article was published.
• Monitor mode returns only new articles, ready for Slack, Discord, Telegram or email alerts.
• One clean row per article for research, sentiment analysis, media monitoring and news dashboards.
• Runs in seconds because the feeds carry many articles per request.

What makes this different

Articles from several BBC News sections are merged into one deduplicated list, sorted newest first, and monitor mode keeps a baseline between runs so a scheduled run returns only what is new.

How it works

1. Your input — choose the sections, add optional topic words and a time window.
2. The Actor collects it — the Actor reads the current BBC News articles for those sections and keeps the ones that match.
3. Your output — you get one clean row per article, newest first, or only new articles in monitor mode.

What data can you extract?

The dataset has 16 fields per row:

Field	Type	Description
id	string	Stable article ID, derived from the article address.
source	string	News outlet.
section	string	Section the article was found in.
title	string	Headline.
url	string	Article address.
summary	string	Short summary or standfirst.
author	string	Author or authors; null when not listed.
publishedAt	string	Publication time, ISO 8601 UTC.
updatedAt	string	Last update time, ISO 8601 UTC; null when not listed.
imageUrl	string	Lead image address.
tags	array	Topic tags or categories.
text	string	Article text; only when Include article text is on.
wordCount	integer	Number of words in the article text.
language	string	Language of the article.
isNewToWatch	boolean	True the first time this article appears in this list.
scrapedAt	string	When the record was collected, ISO 8601 UTC.

How to use BBC News Scraper

1. Open the Actor and go to the Input tab.
2. Choose one or more Sections, for example Top stories, and run the Actor.
3. Optionally set filters and a Max results limit.
4. Click Start. A default run finishes in under a minute.
5. Open the Output tab, then download the dataset or connect it to your tools.

Input Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
sections	array	No	["top"]	Which BBC News sections to read. Articles that appear in several sections are returned once.
searchTerms	array	No	—	Keep articles whose headline, summary or tags contain all words of any term, for example "climate" or "interest rates". Leave empty to keep everything.
publishedWithinHours	integer	No	—	Only articles published in the last this-many hours, for example 24.
includeFullText	boolean	No	false	Off by default. When on, the Actor also reads the text of each article page, which makes the run slower. Some articles are behind a paywall or subscription and return only the free part.
maxItems	integer	No	20	Stop once this many articles have been written to the dataset (newest first).
monitorMode	boolean	No	false	When on, the run returns only articles that were not in the previous run of the same list. Turn this on for scheduled runs, and set Max results high enough to cover a full feed.
proxyConfiguration	object	No	{"useApifyProxy":false}	Optional. BBC News works without a proxy at normal volumes.

Output Data

publishedAt and updatedAt are ISO 8601 timestamps in UTC. section is the section the article was found in. isNewToWatch is true the first time an article appears in a watched list. text is only filled when Include article text is on. Fields that do not apply are null.

A real dataset item:

{
    "id": "74dbbe9c743a1496",
    "source": "BBC News",
    "section": "Top stories",
    "title": "Nvidia boss rejects AI extinction fears as 'doomsday narratives'",
    "url": "https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr5ye7p13jg7o?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss",
    "summary": "Jensen Huang's comments come after warnings from AI researchers that the technology could lead to human extinction.",
    "author": null,
    "publishedAt": "2026-09-21T06:25:43.000Z",
    "updatedAt": null,
    "imageUrl": "https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/ace/standard/240/cpsprodpb/ba1f/live/38ae4b30-b54a-11f1-a718-f1288d239f82.jpg",
    "tags": [],
    "text": null,
    "wordCount": null,
    "language": "en",
    "isNewToWatch": true,
    "scrapedAt": "2026-09-21T06:53:26.691Z"
}

Usage Examples

Latest headlines

{
    "sections": ["top"],
    "maxItems": 20
}

Articles about "election" in the last 24 hours

{
    "sections": ["top", "world", "politics"],
    "searchTerms": ["election"],
    "publishedWithinHours": 24
}

Articles with their text

{
    "sections": ["top"],
    "includeFullText": true,
    "maxItems": 10
}

Alert for new articles

{
    "sections": ["top"],
    "monitorMode": true,
    "maxItems": 100
}

Tips for Best Results

• Use Published within the last hours together with a topic word for a daily briefing.
• Schedule monitor mode every 15 to 60 minutes and send new rows to Slack or Discord.
• Keep the same sections and filters between scheduled runs - the baseline is kept per list.
• Select several sections to build a wider feed; duplicates are removed.

Known Limitations

• Only the articles that BBC News currently lists in its public feeds are returned, so very old articles are not available.
• The number of articles per section depends on what the outlet publishes, often 10 to 100.
• Paywalled or subscriber-only articles return only their free part when article text is on.
• Article text is the text of the page; captions, embedded posts and video are not included.
• Monitor mode remembers the articles of each run, so keep the same sections and filters between scheduled runs.

Integrations

Run it from the Apify API, on a schedule, or from a webhook. Send results straight to Google Sheets, Make, Zapier, Slack or your own database with Apify's built-in integrations.

Export Formats

Download the dataset as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, HTML table or RSS from the Output tab or the API.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I get the latest BBC News headlines?

Choose the sections and run the Actor. Each article is returned with its headline, summary, author and publication time.

Can I get an alert when a new article is published?

Turn on Monitor mode and schedule the run. Each run returns only articles that were not in the previous run.

Can I search for a topic?

Yes. Add words to Only articles about. An article is kept when its headline, summary or tags contain all words of any entry.

Does it get the article text?

Yes, optionally. Turn on Include article text. Paywalled articles return only their free part.

How many articles can I get?

The default is 20 per run and you can raise it to 500 with Max results. The number available depends on what the outlet lists.

How fresh is the data?

Articles are read live on every run.

Do I need an account or login?

No. The Actor reads public BBC News pages and needs no account, cookies or API key.

Am I charged for failed runs or empty results?

You are only charged for results that are actually written to the dataset.

Can I run it on a schedule?

Yes. Create a Task with your input and add a schedule in Apify Console. With monitor mode on, each scheduled run returns only what changed since the previous one.

Support

Questions or a missing field? Open an issue from the Issues tab on this Actor's page and it will be looked at.

Legal / Responsible Use

You are responsible for using the collected articles in line with BBC News's terms and applicable copyright law. The Actor reads public headlines and summaries and, when switched on, the public text of articles; it does not bypass paywalls or logins. Articles are copyrighted by their publisher, so link to them and do not republish full text. The Actor is not affiliated with BBC News.