# CNN Videos Scraper (`scrapyx/cnn-videos-scraper`) Actor

Collects video metadata from the six CNN editions that publish a video feed -- US, International, Espanol, Arabic, Indonesia and Portugal -- returning title, description, duration, thumbnail, upload date and embed URL, with archive access back to 2015. Never downloads the media itself.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/scrapyx/cnn-videos-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Ibnu Adzim](https://apify.com/scrapyx) (community)
- **Categories:** News
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $2.10 / 1,000 results

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## CNN Videos Scraper (6 Editions)

Collects **video metadata** — never the media files — from the six CNN editions
that publish a video feed.

| | |
| --- | --- |
| **Editions with video** | US, International, en Español, Arabic, Indonesia, Portugal |
| **Editions without** | Brasil, Chile, Czechia, Greece, Japan, Türkiye — each returns an ERROR row explaining why |
| **Returns** | title, description, duration (normalised to seconds), thumbnail, upload date, content and embed URLs, transcript when published |
| **Archive** | back to 2015 on US / International / en Español |

### Example input

```json
{
  "editions": ["us", "indonesia", "portugal"],
  "maxItemsPerEdition": 25,
  "includeVideoDetail": true
}
```

### Two metadata sources

Which one an edition offers changes what a cheap run can return:

- **CNN Indonesia and CNN Portugal** embed Google Video sitemap tags
  (`<video:video>`) directly in the feed — title, description, thumbnail and
  duration arrive without any detail fetch. `feedCarriesVideoTags` is `true` on
  their summary rows.
- **US, International, en Español and Arabic** publish bare URL sitemaps. Their
  metadata exists only in a `VideoObject` JSON-LD block on each video's page, so
  `includeVideoDetail` must stay on for those.

Durations are normalised to `videoDurationSeconds` from both forms — sitemaps
give plain seconds, JSON-LD gives ISO-8601 `PT1M34S` — so one comparable number
exists regardless of which edition a row came from.

### Limits

- **Six editions have no video feed at all.** They are not silently dropped:
  each returns an ERROR row naming the reason. CNN Greece is a notable case —
  `cnn.gr/sitemap/videos` answers 200 with a valid `<sitemapindex>`, but its
  children are the site's *article*, *pages* and *tags* sitemaps. It is the
  generic index served for any `/sitemap/<anything>` path, not a video feed.
- **CNN Indonesia's video sitemap carries no date field.** No
  `<video:publication_date>`, no `<lastmod>`. The publish date is derived from
  the timestamp in each video's URL and flagged
  `videoUploadDateSource: "url-derived"` so a consumer can tell it apart from an
  upstream-supplied date.
- **CNN Arabic's video archive is stale and ordered oldest-first.** Its ten
  pages run from 2014; the newest content is on the *last* page, which this
  actor reads first.
- **Media files are never downloaded.** `videoContentUrl` and `videoEmbedUrl`
  are returned as published; fetching them is out of scope.

# Actor input Schema

## `editions` (type: `array`):

Which CNN editions to pull video metadata from. Only six publish a video feed at all. The other six are listed here so you get a clear explanation rather than a silent miss -- asking for them returns an ERROR row naming exactly why (no video sitemap, or an empty video RSS).

## `sections` (type: `array`):

Optional. On CNN Indonesia each section has its own video feed, so a section becomes its own query: nasional, internasional, ekonomi, olahraga, teknologi, otomotif, hiburan, gaya-hidup (edukasi has no video feed). On CNN US, International and en Espanol sections instead select which archive partitions get fetched, and only when 'Include archive' is on.

## `keywords` (type: `array`):

Optional. Keep only videos whose title or description contains one of these words (case-insensitive, OR-combined). Applied after fetching -- no CNN video sitemap accepts a query parameter.

## `maxItemsPerEdition` (type: `integer`):

Cap on videos returned per edition (or per edition+section pair). Set to 0 for unlimited. With 'Fetch video detail page' on, each video costs one extra request.

## `includeVideoDetail` (type: `boolean`):

Fetch each video's own page for the VideoObject metadata -- title, description, duration, thumbnail, upload date, content and embed URLs. Required for CNN US, International, Espanol and Arabic, whose sitemaps carry no video metadata at all. CNN Indonesia and CNN Portugal embed it in the feed, so they return usable rows even with this off.

## `includeArchive` (type: `boolean`):

Fetch more than one archive partition per edition. CNN US and International partition video by section and month back to 2015 (2,387 partitions); Espanol has 2,331. Off by default, which fetches only the newest partition.

## `maxArchivePartitions` (type: `integer`):

How many archive sitemap files to fetch per edition when 'Include archive' is on, newest first. Ignored when it is off.

## `dateFrom` (type: `string`):

Optional lower bound on publish date, inclusive. CNN Indonesia's video sitemap carries no date field at all, so its dates are derived from the timestamp in each video's URL and flagged `videoUploadDateSource: url-derived`.

## `dateTo` (type: `string`):

Optional upper bound on publish date, inclusive.

## `maxConcurrency` (type: `integer`):

Upper bound on requests in flight at once across all editions in this run.

## `minRequestInterval` (type: `number`):

Shared pacing floor across every request this run makes. Once this cap binds, raising concurrency buys nothing.

## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`):

Apify Proxy on the shared datacenter pool. This is the default because it is included in your plan at no extra cost and this target works through it. If you start seeing blocks, challenges or empty results, switch the group here to Residential -- it uses real consumer IPs and gets through more, but Apify bills residential traffic per gigabyte, so leave it off unless you need it.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "editions": [
    "us"
  ],
  "sections": [],
  "keywords": [],
  "maxItemsPerEdition": 25,
  "includeVideoDetail": true,
  "includeArchive": false,
  "maxArchivePartitions": 12,
  "maxConcurrency": 5,
  "minRequestInterval": 0.25,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `items` (type: `string`):

One row per scraped record. See the dataset's default view for field definitions.

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "editions": [
        "us"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("scrapyx/cnn-videos-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "editions": ["us"] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("scrapyx/cnn-videos-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "editions": [
    "us"
  ]
}' |
apify call scrapyx/cnn-videos-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,scrapyx/cnn-videos-scraper"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/dII4CBbZ3qsFxxF6P/builds/com34zoTg6by3pWOf/openapi.json