Listennotes Listen API: Podcast Search, Directory, and Insights API
61
AI ReadinessAI-Aware (B-)61/100
Official vendor OpenAPI document · agent-readyMediaAudio ProcessingapiKey26 EndpointsREST
For Agents
Search podcasts and episodes, fetch detailed metadata, get recommendations and best-of lists, and pull audience demographics across the global podcast directory.
Use for: I need to search podcasts about machine learning, I want to find episodes that mention a specific person, Get the metadata for a podcast by its id, Retrieve recommended podcasts similar to a given show
Not supported: Does not handle podcast hosting, audio transcoding, or episode playback - use for podcast search, directory, and insights metadata only.
The Listen API by Listen Notes is a podcast search, directory, and insights service indexing millions of podcasts and episodes. It provides full-text search across episodes and podcasts, typeahead and spellcheck for search inputs, curated and best-podcast lists, recommendations, audience demographics, batch metadata fetches, and tools to submit or refresh podcast feeds. Useful for podcast discovery products, voice assistants, and analytics dashboards that need a normalised view of the podcast ecosystem.
Install Jentic One Beta
Connect the Listen API: Podcast Search, Directory, and Insights API to your agent
Jentic One is a self-hosted execution layer for AI agents. It lets your agent call the Listen API: Podcast Search, Directory, and Insights API, or any other public or private API you need. You set the rules, the agent never sees your credentials, and every call is logged.
Two steps, two machines. Install the instance in a safe environment, then register your agent from wherever it runs.
1
Step 1: Jentic One Host machine
# On the machine that will host your Jentic One instance:
curl -fsSL "https://jentic.com/install.sh?src=apis&api=%2Fapis%2Flistennotes.com%2Flistennotes" | sh2
Step 2: Agent machine
# On the machine where your agent runs (keep this separate from the instance):
curl -fsSL "https://jentic.com/install.sh?src=apis&api=%2Fapis%2Flistennotes.com%2Flistennotes" | sh
jentic register # connects your agent to your Jentic One instanceJentic One is in public beta. The setup above keeps your agent separate from the instance, which is what you want before using real credentials: an agent running as the same OS user as Jentic One can read its stored keys directly. Just evaluating? A single local install is fine to start. See the secure deployment guide for the tiers.
Capabilities
What an agent can do with Listen API: Podcast Search, Directory, and Insights API.
Run full-text search across podcasts and episodes via GET /search with filters for language, region, and length
Power search inputs with typeahead suggestions and spellcheck via GET /typeahead and GET /spellcheck
Fetch detailed podcast or episode metadata by id via GET /podcasts/{id} and GET /episodes/{id}
Batch fetch basic metadata for many podcasts or episodes via POST /podcasts and POST /episodes
Surface curated and best podcast lists via GET /best_podcasts and GET /curated_podcasts
Retrieve recommendations and audience demographics via GET /podcasts/{id}/recommendations and GET /podcasts/{id}/audience
Use Cases
Patterns agents use Listen API: Podcast Search, Directory, and Insights API for, with concrete tasks.
★ Podcast Discovery Search
Build a podcast discovery experience that returns relevant shows and episodes for any query. GET /search supports full-text search with filters for language, country, length, and date, and GET /typeahead provides autocomplete suggestions as the user types. Suitable for podcast apps, voice assistants, and content portals serving millions of queries per month.
Call GET /search with q='machine learning', type=podcast, language=English and return the top 10 results with title, description, and image.
Best-Of and Curated Lists
Render best-of and curated podcast lists by genre, region, or topic without scraping the Listen Notes site. GET /best_podcasts returns the top podcasts for a given genre and region, while GET /curated_podcasts returns editor-curated lists. Useful for newsletters, recommendation pages, and weekly content drops.
Call GET /best_podcasts with genre_id=99 and region=us, then format the top 25 results as a newsletter section.
Audience and Recommendation Insights
Fetch audience demographics and similar-podcast recommendations to power editorial planning, ad inventory analysis, and personalised user feeds. GET /podcasts/{id}/audience returns audience signals for a podcast and GET /podcasts/{id}/recommendations returns related shows. Best for analytics teams sizing audiences and product teams driving 'more like this' recommendations.
Call GET /podcasts/{id}/audience for the target show and GET /podcasts/{id}/recommendations to assemble an audience insights summary.
Catalogue Sync and Refresh
Keep a downstream catalogue in sync with Listen Notes by batching metadata fetches and refreshing RSS feeds for tracked shows. POST /podcasts and POST /episodes fetch basic metadata for many ids in one call, and POST /podcasts/{id}/rss refreshes a feed when a host has published new episodes. Reduces sync time on large catalogues from hours to minutes.
POST /podcasts with a list of tracked podcast ids, then POST /podcasts/{id}/rss for any whose last_pub_date is older than 24 hours.
AI Agent Podcast Search
Let an AI agent search the podcast directory and return episode-level matches in a chat or research workflow. Through Jentic, the agent searches for the Listen API search operation, loads the schema, and executes GET /search with the user's query and filters, while the API key stays in your Jentic One instance. The agent can chain follow-ups by calling GET /episodes/{id} or GET /podcasts/{id}/recommendations.
Search Jentic for 'search podcasts on a topic', load the schema, execute GET /search with q=<user topic>, and summarise the top results.
Key Endpoints
26 endpoints — the listen api by listen notes is a podcast search, directory, and insights service indexing millions of podcasts and episodes.
METHOD
PATH
DESCRIPTION
GET
/search
Full-text search across podcasts and episodes
GET
/typeahead
Typeahead search suggestions
GET
/podcasts/{id}
Get podcast metadata and episodes
GET
/episodes/{id}
Get episode metadata
GET
/best_podcasts
List best podcasts by genre and region
GET
/podcasts/{id}/recommendations
Recommended similar podcasts
GET
/podcasts/{id}/audience
Audience demographics for a podcast
GET
/search
Full-text search across podcasts and episodes
GET
/typeahead
Typeahead search suggestions
GET
/podcasts/{id}
Get podcast metadata and episodes
GET
/episodes/{id}
Get episode metadata
GET
/best_podcasts
List best podcasts by genre and region
GET
/podcasts/{id}/recommendations
Recommended similar podcasts
GET
/podcasts/{id}/audience
Audience demographics for a podcast
Jentic AI Readiness Score
This API is usable in Jentic One now. Its AI-readiness score against Jentic's framework shows where it stands today and where improvements would make it even easier for agents to use.
L
Listen API: Podcast Search, Directory, and Insights API
- AI-Aware (B-)61/100
86
Foundational Compliance77
Developer Experience & Jentic Compatibility32
AI-Readiness & Agent Experience94
Agent Usability100
Security79
AI DiscoverabilityPowered by JenticScoring Framework 1.0.0 | Scoring Engine 0.4.0
Show dimension breakdown
86
Foundational Compliance
Base layer of spec validity and structural soundness.
Grade: ASignals: 4
97%
Lint Results
Aggregated quality score from linter diagnostics, weighted by severity.
98%
Resolution Completeness
Percentage of `$ref` references that resolve successfully.
100%
Specification Validity
Checks whether the API description parses successfully and conforms to its declared specification (e.g., OpenAPI).
50%
Structural Integrity
Structural correctness score based on schema issues using logarithmic dampening.
77
Developer Experience & Jentic Compatibility
Clarity, completeness, and ingestion readiness for developers and tooling.
Grade: A-Signals: 4
32%
Example Density
How richly the API is illustrated with examples.
100%
Example Validity
Percentage of examples that conform to their schemas.
75%
Response Coverage
Percentage of operations with complete response definitions (success, client error, server error).
100%
Tooling Readiness
Health of API ingestion, bundling, and resolution within Jentic pipelines.
32
AI-Readiness & Agent Experience
Semantic breadth, depth, and agent comprehension for AI systems.
Grade: FSignals: 4
31%
Description Coverage
Coverage of descriptions across API elements.
0%
Error Standardization
Coverage of RFC 9457 Problem Details for error responses.
88%
OperationId Quality
Coverage, uniqueness, and casing consistency of operationIds for AI inference.
9%
Summary Coverage
Coverage of summaries across operations/tags/info.
94
Agent Usability
Functional utility, complexity comfort, and AI orchestration readiness.
Grade: A+Signals: 1
94%
Complexity Comfort
Agent comfort level based on API operational and structural complexity.
100
Security
Trust, risk posture, and security compliance.
Grade: A+Signals: 1
100%
Authentication Strength
Average quality of security schemes based on authentication method strength (weakest link for OAuth2).
79
AI Discoverability
Findability, semantic richness, and reasoning readiness.
Grade: A-Signals: 1
79%
Descriptive Richness
Clarity and depth of descriptions across API elements.
Score it yourself
Every API in the directory is allowlisted, so you can re-score it with no key required.
npx @jentic/api-scorecard-cli score <openapi-url>Why Jentic?
What agents get from Jentic-routed access to this vendor.
Setup
Wiring the Listen API by hand means setting up its X-ListenAPI-Key header auth, attaching it to every request against listen-api.listennotes.com, and handling retries yourself across search and directory calls. Through Jentic you install once, import the Listen API from the API Directory, store the key once, and your agent calls it.
Permission scoping
The Listen API puts the podcast or episode id in the URL path (/podcasts/{id}, /episodes/{id}), so a rule can pin your agent to reads for a given podcast, such as its recommendations or audience insights. Every operation here is a read, so the agent retrieves directory and insights data and performs no writes.
Credential isolation
Your Listen API key is stored once, encrypted, by your own Jentic One instance and injected as the X-ListenAPI-Key header at execution time. It never enters the agent's prompt, logs, or context.
Intent-based discovery
Agents search Jentic by intent such as 'find podcasts about a topic' or 'get episode details', and Jentic returns the matching Listen API operation with its input schema so the agent calls the right endpoint without browsing the reference docs.
Related APIs
Alternatives and complements available in the Jentic catalogue.
FAQs
Specific to using Listen API: Podcast Search, Directory, and Insights API through Jentic.
What authentication does the Listen Notes API use?
Listen Notes uses an API key passed in the X-ListenAPI-Key header on every request. Through Jentic, the key is stored in your Jentic One instance and injected at execution time, so agents only see the response payloads.
Can I find episodes by topic or person with the Listen Notes API?
Yes. GET /search supports full-text search across podcasts and episodes with q for the query, type to scope to podcast or episode, and filters for language, country, and length. GET /search_episode_titles narrows search to episode titles only when that's a better match for the use case.
What are the rate limits for the Listen Notes API?
Rate limits are tiered by plan. Free tiers are tightly throttled (suitable for development) while paid plans provide thousands of monthly requests with higher per-second limits. Agents should cache podcast metadata by id rather than re-fetching for repeated queries.
How do I search podcasts through Jentic?
Run pip install jentic, then search for 'search podcasts on a topic'. Jentic returns GET /search. Load the schema, supply q=<topic>, type=podcast, and any filters, and execute. Iterate by calling GET /podcasts/{id} for full metadata on the top hits.
Does Listen Notes expose audience demographics?
Yes, on supporting plans. GET /podcasts/{id}/audience returns audience demographic signals for the requested podcast id, useful for ad-inventory analysis and editorial sizing. Pair it with GET /podcasts/{id}/recommendations to surface comparable shows.
Can I limit what my agent is allowed to do with the Listen Notes API?
Yes. Because you run your own self-hosted Jentic One instance, your rules decide which Listen Notes operations and credentials the agent may use. Since the podcast or episode id sits in the URL path on calls like GET /podcasts/{id}, GET /episodes/{id}, GET /podcasts/{id}/recommendations, and GET /podcasts/{id}/audience, you can pin the agent to reads for a specific show, such as its recommendations or audience insights. Every operation in this API is a read, so the agent retrieves directory and insights data and performs no writes.
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