🎙️ Podcast Episodes Scraper — Episode Metadata & Audio URLs

Extract podcast episode metadata from any public RSS feed, or look a show up by name on the public Apple Podcasts (iTunes Search) index and pull its feed automatically. One dataset row per episode: title, description, publish date, episode/season number, episode type, duration and the direct audioUrl enclosure.

A pay-per-result alternative to ListenNotes API ($16–200/mo), Podchaser Pro and Chartable — built for podcast networks doing competitive intel, ad-buyers sizing shows, ML/NLP teams assembling speech corpora, and journalists mining episode catalogs.

▶️ Example input

Look a show up by name:

{ "podcastName": "The Daily", "maxEpisodes": 3 }

Or point it straight at a feed:

{ "rssUrl": "https://feeds.simplecast.com/Sl5CSM3S", "maxEpisodes": 50 }

One show per run. Leave both podcastName and rssUrl empty and the run succeeds with 0 rows and charges nothing for results.

📊 What you get per episode

Each dataset item is a flat record:

• title — episode title
• description — episode description / summary, HTML stripped
• publishedAt — publish date exactly as the feed states it (RFC-822 string)
• link — episode page URL
• guid — the feed's stable episode id
• audioUrl — direct enclosure URL (mp3/m4a); audioType, audioLength (bytes)
• duration — the feed's itunes:duration value, as published
• episodeNumber, seasonNumber, episodeType (full / trailer / bonus)
• feedUrl — the RSS feed the episode came from
• podcastName, artistName, artworkUrl, genre — show-level fields, present only when the show was found via the Apple Podcasts lookup (not when you pass rssUrl directly)

Fields are taken verbatim from the publisher's RSS feed, so anything the publisher omits comes back empty. Transcripts, chart rank, Spotify IDs and per-episode artwork are not extracted.

💵 Pricing

Pay-per-event — you only pay for episodes that land in your dataset.

• Actor Start: $0.00005 per run event (memory-scaled)
• Per episode returned: $0.02 — i.e. $20 per 1,000 episodes, 50 episodes per $1

Example runs: 25 episodes = $0.50 · 100 episodes = $2.00 · 500 episodes = $10.00.

Nothing is charged for results when the show is not found, the feed is empty, or the run fails — a blocked or unreadable source fails the run rather than quietly returning an empty dataset.

Use Cases

• Podcast networks — competitive intel across a peer set; track release cadence and episode length
• Ad agencies — build a target list of shows by genre and release frequency
• ML / speech teams — assemble a training corpus by pulling audioUrl for every episode in a niche
• Journalists / researchers — search episode descriptions across a topic catalog
• PR teams — find episodes mentioning a brand by searching episode description text

Quick Start

from apify_client import ApifyClient
client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("nexgendata/podcast-episodes-scraper").call(run_input={
    "podcastName": "The Daily",
    "maxEpisodes": 25,
})
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item["podcastName"], item["title"], item["duration"], item["audioUrl"])

FAQ

Do I need a ListenNotes API key? No. This actor parses public RSS feeds plus the public Apple Podcasts search index. No third-party key required.

Can I pass an RSS URL directly? Yes — rssUrl. When set, podcastName is ignored.

Can I scrape several shows in one run? Not yet — one show (podcastName or rssUrl) per run. Schedule or fan out runs for a peer set.

Are transcripts returned? No. Transcript and chart-rank extraction are not implemented.

What if the show is exclusive to one platform? Apple's index publishes no RSS feed URL for some shows; the run then succeeds with 0 rows and tells you so, charging nothing for results.

Output formats? JSON, CSV, Excel, and the Apify dataset API.

Is this legal? RSS feeds are the public, intentional distribution channel for podcasts.

Related NexGenData Actors

Use case	Actor
YouTube channel + video metadata MCP	youtube-media-mcp-server
YouTube transcripts & captions	youtube-transcript-scraper
YouTube comments (audience + sentiment)	youtube-comments-scraper
AI sentiment + theme analyzer	ai-sentiment-analyzer
NPR news & podcast scraper	npr-scraper
Reddit subreddit trend tracker	reddit-subreddit-trends

Integration Surface

Apify console, Apify API (REST + webhooks), Python / JS SDKs, Zapier / Make.com / n8n, MCP, and built-in cron schedules.

Support

Bug reports via the Apify console Issues tab get a response within 24 hours.

Home: thenextgennexus.com · Full catalog: apify.com/nexgendata

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