# BBC News Articles Scraper (`parseforge/bbc-news-articles-scraper`) Actor

Scrapes the latest BBC News articles and returns headline, summary, URL, and publication time for each. Set maxItems to control volume. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/parseforge/bbc-news-articles-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [ParseForge](https://apify.com/parseforge) (community)
- **Categories:** News, Other
- **Stats:** 5 total users, 2 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $19.00 / 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

[![ParseForge](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ParseForge/apify-assets/main/banner.jpg)](https://apify.com/parseforge?fpr=vmoqkp)

### BBC News Articles Scraper

**Scrape BBC News articles from the UK and world sections, up to a million per run.** Every article comes with its headline, summary, URL, and publication time. No login or API key. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

BBC News publishes hundreds of articles a day across UK, world, business, politics, and more, but there is no official public API for bulk access. This Actor reads the public article feeds directly and returns each match in one fixed schema, so you can monitor headlines, track topics, or build a news dataset without writing a scraper.

| Who uses it | What they scrape BBC News for |
|---|---|
| Journalists and editors | Monitor breaking stories and compare coverage across outlets |
| Market researchers | Track which topics BBC News is prioritizing this week |
| Data analysts | Build a time series of BBC headlines for trend analysis |
| PR and communications teams | Watch for mentions of clients, competitors, or industry keywords |
| Academics and students | Collect a corpus of BBC articles for media studies or NLP projects |

### What it does

This Actor collects the latest BBC News articles and returns each one as a flat row with headline, summary, URL, and publication time.

- 📰 **Latest articles:** Pull the most recent stories from the BBC News homepage feed.
- 🔢 **Configurable volume:** Set maxItems from 1 to 1,000,000 to control how many articles you collect per run.
- 📅 **Publication time included:** Each row carries the article's publication timestamp, so you can sort and filter by recency.
- 🔗 **Direct URLs:** Every article comes with its canonical BBC News URL for follow-up scraping or citation.
- 📄 **Flat schema:** One row per article, ready for CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML export without transformation.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

### What you can do with BBC News data

**📈 Track topics and trends.**

A market researcher runs the Actor daily with maxItems set to 500 and charts which keywords appear most often in BBC headlines to spot rising themes.

**🔔 Monitor breaking news.**

A newsroom analyst schedules the Actor every 15 minutes and pushes new BBC headlines to a Slack channel so editors see stories as they break.

**🧪 Build a research corpus.**

A graduate student collects 50,000 BBC articles into a CSV and uses the headline and summary fields to train a text classifier for media bias.

**📊 Compare coverage.**

A PR manager runs the Actor alongside scrapers for Reuters and Yahoo News, then compares which outlets covered a client's announcement and when.

### Why choose this scraper

|  | What you get |
|---|---|
| **No API key** | BBC News has no public bulk API; this reads the public feeds directly |
| **Up to 1M articles** | Collect a single headline or a million-row dataset in one run |
| **Fixed schema** | Headline, summary, URL, and publication time in every row |
| **Export anywhere** | CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, ready for your pipeline |

### How it compares

No other Store actor targets BBC News the same way, so the honest comparison is with the alternatives teams actually weigh.

| | BBC News Articles Scraper | Build it in-house | By hand |
|---|---|---|---|
| Setup | Run it now, zero config | Days of engineering | None, but hours per pull |
| When BBC News changes | Maintained for you | You fix it | You re-learn the page |
| Proxies, retries, anti-bot | Built in | Your problem | Browser only |
| Output | Fixed JSON schema, CSV/Excel export | Whatever you build | Copy-paste |
| Cost | Pay per result | Engineering time | Analyst hours |

### Configure the run

Drive the Actor with a single maxItems setting that caps how many of the latest BBC News articles are collected per run. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

```json
{
  "maxItems": 10
}
```

A larger pull:

```json
{
  "maxItems": 200
}
```

### Pricing

Pay-per-result: **$0.021 per result** collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

| Results collected | Approximate cost |
|---|---|
| 100 results | $2.10 |
| 1,000 results | $21.00 |
| 10,000 results | $210.00 |

New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.

### Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. [Upgrade your Apify plan](https://console.apify.com/sign-up?fpr=vmoqkp) to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

### Run it

1. [Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit](https://console.apify.com/sign-up?fpr=vmoqkp).
2. Open the [BBC News Articles Scraper](https://apify.com/parseforge/bbc-news-articles-scraper?fpr=vmoqkp).
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click **Start**.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the **Dataset** tab.

Run it programmatically through the [Apify API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2) (`run-sync-get-dataset-items`) or the [ApifyClient](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js) for JavaScript and Python.

### Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to BBC News through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

```bash
claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=parseforge/bbc-news-articles-scraper"
```

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

### Troubleshooting

**Why am I getting no results?**

Check that maxItems is set to at least 1. Also confirm the BBC News feed is reachable from your location; if the site is temporarily down, retry later.

**Why did the run stop before reaching maxItems?**

The Actor can only return articles that are currently on the BBC News feed. If the feed has fewer articles than your maxItems value, you will get all available articles.

**Why are some articles missing a summary?**

BBC News sometimes publishes articles without a summary field. In those cases the summary will be empty in your dataset. This is expected behavior.

**Why is the publication time in a different timezone?**

The Actor returns the timestamp exactly as provided by BBC News, which is typically UTC. Convert it to your local timezone in your own processing.

**Can I get more than 1,000,000 articles?**

The maximum for a single run is 1,000,000. If you need more, run the Actor multiple times or contact support to discuss a custom solution.

### FAQ

| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Does this Actor scrape the full article body text? | No. This Actor returns the headline, summary, URL, and publication time for each article. If you need the full body text, you can use the URL with a separate page scraper. |
| Can I filter by section, like Business or Sport? | The current version collects the latest articles from the main BBC News feed, which includes all sections. Section-specific filtering is not available in this Actor. |
| How many articles can I get in one run? | You can set maxItems from 1 to 1,000,000. The Actor will collect up to that many of the most recent articles available on the BBC News feed. |
| Do I need a BBC API key or login? | No. The Actor reads the public BBC News feeds directly, so no registration, API key, or authentication is required. |
| How fresh is the data? | Each run pulls the current BBC News homepage feed, so you get the articles that are live at the moment the Actor runs. Schedule it frequently for near-real-time monitoring. |
| What output formats are supported? | You can export the dataset as CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML from the Apify platform, or access it via the API. |
| Can I get historical BBC News articles? | This Actor only collects articles currently listed on the BBC News feed. It does not go back in time or search the BBC archive. |
| Is this Actor affiliated with the BBC? | No. This is an independent scraper built on the Apify platform. It is not endorsed by or connected to the BBC. |
| What fields does each article row contain? | Each row includes the article headline, summary, URL, and publication time. The exact field names are shown in the sample output on this page. |
| Can I run this Actor on a schedule? | Yes. You can set up a schedule in Apify to run the Actor every hour, day, or any interval you need, and the results will accumulate in your dataset. |

### Related actors

Browse the full [ParseForge collection](https://apify.com/parseforge?fpr=vmoqkp) for more scrapers.

🆘 **Need help?** Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ **Disclaimer.** This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by BBC. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.

# Actor input Schema

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

How many articles to collect per run.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "maxItems": 10
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

No description

# 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 = {
    "maxItems": 10
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("parseforge/bbc-news-articles-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 = { "maxItems": 10 }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("parseforge/bbc-news-articles-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 '{
  "maxItems": 10
}' |
apify call parseforge/bbc-news-articles-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,parseforge/bbc-news-articles-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/SxIjt07gLpWc8aujk/builds/3ZFzOfjjafTmO9eTC/openapi.json