ARD Mediathek Scraper for a Federated Broadcast Catalog

One platform, nine regional broadcasters behind it. Drop the producer field and a federation looks like a single national channel.

Plans from €169/month · Free project assessment · Reply within 1 business day

ARD Mediathek Scraper
Solutions

Managed public broadcast metadata, run end to end by us

ScrapeIt runs the collection as a managed service. You name the producers, genres or the full catalogue; we enumerate from the published sitemaps, record the producing broadcaster and resolve availability windows to absolute dates, and hand back CSV, JSON, Excel or a push into your warehouse.

Where departures matter we run repeat collection so arrivals and expiries become records rather than a difference somebody has to reconstruct.

ARD Mediathek fields in every export

Programme records carry the title, series and episode identifiers, description, genre, duration, the producing broadcaster, first broadcast date, availability window and the address.

Producing broadcaster is a first class field. It is the federation's defining structure and it is what allows questions about regional commissioning, regional content share and how the institutions differ from each other.

Availability window is recorded with its expiry, because German public broadcasting operates time limits on how long material stays online and those limits are part of what the catalogue is.

Discovery source is recorded per row - which sitemap an address came from - so coverage can be audited rather than assumed complete.

Every row carries the collection timestamp, which is what makes an expiry date interpretable.

ARD Mediathek fields in every export
Regional commissioning, expiry tracking and limits

Regional commissioning, expiry tracking and limits

Regional commissioning analysis is the distinctive output: how much each institution contributes, in which genres, and how that has changed. It is a question about the structure of German public broadcasting and it needs the producer field to be answerable at all.

Expiry tracking produces the departure feed that every time-limited catalogue supports: what is leaving, when, by producer and genre. It requires windows resolved to absolute dates at collection.

Coverage auditing from the sitemap source field tells you honestly how much of the catalogue a collection actually reached, rather than presenting whatever was found as complete.

Limits: metadata only, never streams or anything behind a sign in, and no viewer data.

A federation presented as one service

ARD Mediathek is the joint on demand platform of Germany's public broadcasting federation. What looks like a single service is a shared front end over the catalogues of the regional broadcasting institutions that make up the federation, each with its own commissioning and regional remit.

That structure is the thing to preserve. A programme made by one regional broadcaster for its own region is a different object from a federation-wide commission, and a catalogue that records only the platform loses the distinction entirely - which for any question about German public broadcasting is the distinction that matters.

Discovery works through published sitemaps rather than through a browsable index. The detail and video sitemaps list programme addresses that respond directly, which makes enumeration straightforward without crawling the interface.

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dev_w
25

Developers

customers
500+

Customers worldwide

pages
1 500 000 000+

Pages extracted

stime
15000+

Hours saved for our clients

Plans

ARD Mediathek Scraping Plans and Pricing

Airplane

€199 / one-time

setup fee - included

Data limits100,000
Frequencyone-time
Run timeup to 5 days
Data storing7 days

Helicopter

€169 / mo

setup fee €499

Data limits250,000
Frequencymonthly
Run timeup to 5 days
Data storing14 days

Glasses

€229 / mo

setup fee €499

Data limits1,000,000
Frequencyweekly
Run timeup to 5 days
Data storing30 days

DNA

€549 / mo

setup fee €799

Data limits3,000,000
Frequency3 times daily
Run timesame day
Data storing90 days

Delivery: CSV, JSON or XLSX files, our API or a JSON feed. MCP server on request.

Full plan details →

Why the producer field and expiry dates matter

The analytical value is the federated structure and the availability windows - the same time-limited catalogue problem that public broadcasters everywhere present, with an extra dimension because nine institutions feed the same shelf.

The producing broadcaster on every programme record shows how much each regional institution contributes and in which genres. The availability window, resolved to an absolute expiry date, shows what is arriving and what is leaving, by producer and genre. With title, series and episode identifiers, description, duration and first broadcast date beside them, the catalogue becomes a record of how German public broadcasting works rather than a list of programmes.

Because each row also records the sitemap it came from and the moment it was collected, coverage can be checked and every expiry date read against the day it was observed.

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Who builds and keeps your ARD feed

ScrapeIt is a managed extraction company, not a tool you have to learn. Our team builds the pipeline, follows the published sitemaps as the catalogue changes, and repairs the collector before an expiry record develops a gap that cannot be filled.

You see a sample first, in your format, over the producers and genres you actually track, with producer and expiry populated so you can judge the structure on real programmes.

FAQ

Do you offer an ARD Mediathek API?

Yes. The ScrapeIt ARD Mediathek API returns the title, series and episode identifiers, producing broadcaster, first broadcast date and availability window as JSON from an endpoint we host, refreshed on the schedule you set. The same data also comes as CSV or XLSX files or straight into your database.

Is it legal to scrape ARD Mediathek?

Yes. ARD Mediathek programme pages and sitemaps are public, and from them we collect titles, series and episode identifiers, descriptions, genres, durations, producing broadcasters, first broadcast dates and availability windows. We collect only publicly available data - everything a visitor can see on ARD Mediathek - and we collect it legally.

Why record which broadcaster produced a programme?

Because this is a federation, not a single channel. Regional commissioning and regional content share are the questions people actually have about German public broadcasting, and without the producer field none of them can be asked.

How do you find everything if there is no index?

Through the detail and video sitemaps the site publishes. We also record which sitemap each address came from, so coverage can be audited rather than presented as complete because nothing obvious was missing.

Does material expire?

Yes - German public broadcasting operates time limits on how long material stays online. We resolve those windows to absolute dates at collection, which is what makes a departure feed possible.

How does it Work?

Step 1 - Make a Request

You share your needs, expectations, and desired timeframe. We’ll suggest the best solution based on your request and budget.

Step 2 - Configuring Custom Web Crawlers

Our specialists configure the crawlers and extract a sample dataset for your review before proceeding with the full-scale extraction.

Step 3 - Collect and Deliver

Once you approve the sample, we launch the project and start full data collection. We gather, filter, and structure the data for easy use, delivering it on time in your preferred format.

Step 4 - Maintain and Support

Our team manages ongoing processes, monitors website changes, and supports all data extraction cycles. We can also help integrate data into your systems or create dashboards to simplify analysis.

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Tell us more about you and your project information.
Which sites, which fields, how often. A couple of lines is enough.

We reply within 1 business day. No obligation.

ARD Mediathek data from €169/month. Free project assessment, reply within 1 business day.

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