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How to Cite a Podcast in APA 7

APA 7 cites a podcast as an audio work: the host (or executive producer) is the author, the episode title is roman sentence case, the series title is italic, and a bracketed label names the format. This page follows the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th edition (2020), §10.13 and §8.28, the current APA Style podcast references and transcript pages, and the Common Reference Examples Guide last updated 3 March 2026. It is the long APA podcast guide. The shorter walkthrough is podcast in APA. YouTube, film, and MLA podcast citations belong on those pages.

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How to Cite a Podcast in APA: Quick Answer

Credit the host of the show, not the guest you came for and not the app you used. Put (Host) or (Hosts) after the name. For one episode, give the full release date, the episode title in sentence case, the episode number only if the show uses one, then [Audio podcast episode], the word In, and the italic series title. For the whole series, italicize the show title, use a year range, and write [Audio podcast]. End with the production company and a stable URL when you have one. Pair the reference-list entry with an in-text citation that uses those same names and the year, plus a timestamp when you quote a moment. Start from the APA generator or the podcast citation generator when you want the same pattern filled in.

APA 7 §10.13 templates (slots only; not real sources)

Reference, one episode:

Host, A. A. (Host). (Year, Month Day). Title of episode (No. episode number) [Audio podcast episode]. In Title of podcast. Production Company. URL

Reference, whole series:

Host, A. A. (Host). (Year–present). Title of podcast [Audio podcast]. Production Company. URL

Reference, video episode:

Host, A. A. (Host). (Year, Month Day). Title of episode [Video podcast episode]. In Title of podcast. Production Company. URL

Reference, published transcript:

Host, A. A. (Year, Month Day). Title of episode [Audio podcast transcript]. In Title of podcast. Production Company. URL

Parenthetical citation:

(Host, Year)

Narrative citation:

Host (Year)

Parenthetical citation with a timestamp:

(Host, Year, 12:30)

Do not italicize the episode title. Do not invent (No. 12) when the show does not number episodes. Do not list Spotify or Apple Podcasts as the author. Do not paste a platform URL just because that is where you pressed play. A punctuation reminder lives on the APA cheat sheet.

What This Guide Covers (and What It Does Not)

This is an APA 7 source-type guide for audio and video podcast episodes, for a series cited as a whole, and for a published podcast transcript. An earlier draft invented a 2025 Daily renewable-energy episode, a Radiolab "mathematics of love" episode numbered 487, a 2024 Fresh Air Isabel Wilkerson URL, a 2023 Serial date, a fictional psychology podcast, and an Invisibilia line that named the wrong hosts. Those fabricated strings stay gone. The worked set below is the Publication Manual §10.13 pair, the 3 March 2026 Common Reference Examples Guide Santos line, one live NPR interview, one live Hidden Brain episode, and one published transcript.

Episode or Whole Series?

Students often paste one series line and hope it covers every clip they quote. Publication facts change across a run: hosts, episode numbers, and even the company that made the installment can differ. APA therefore treats a single episode the way it treats a chapter in an edited book — the episode has its own title and date, and the series sits in the container position after In.

Cite the episode when you…

  • Quote or paraphrase a claim, interview answer, or scene
  • Need a timestamp the reader can scrub to
  • Compare two episodes from the same show
  • Write about one host's or guest's work in a specific installment

Cite the series as a whole when you…

  • Discuss the show's premise, run, or creators without close analysis of one episode
  • Need a single entry because the paper never quotes a moment
  • Are surveying a completed or ongoing series as one cultural object
APA 7 podcasts at a glance
What you usedAuthor elementDateBracket after the title
One audio episodeHost (or executive producer)Release date (Year, Month Day)[Audio podcast episode]
One video episodeHost (or executive producer)Release date (Year, Month Day)[Video podcast episode]
Whole seriesHost or executive producerFirst year–last year, or first year–present[Audio podcast] or [Video podcast]
Published transcript of an episodeHost (often without a role label)The transcript's date[Audio podcast transcript]
One-off radio hour that was never issued as a podcastThe reporter or speakerBroadcast date[Radio broadcast] — not this page's podcast pattern
User-uploaded clip on YouTubeThe account that uploaded itThe upload date[Video] — use the YouTube guide

The Official APA 7 Rule, from §10.13

Classroom APA in 2026 still means the seventh edition of the Publication Manual, published in 2020. There is no eighth edition to switch to. Section 10.13 is the audio chapter: music, podcasts, radio, and speech recordings sit there, next to the audiovisual examples in §10.12. The free worked examples live on the APA Style podcast references page. The Common Reference Examples Guide (last updated 3 March 2026) adds the Santos Happiness Lab line. University writing centers restate the same author, number, and URL tests. Buena Vista University's APA audio guide copies the official notes this page follows:

APA Style notes on podcast authorship, numbers, and URLs

List the host of the podcast as the author. Alternatively, provide the executive producers, if known. In either case, include their role in parentheses.
Provide the episode number after the title in parentheses. If the podcast does not number episodes, omit the number from the reference.
Specify the type of podcast (audio or video) in square brackets.
If the URL of the podcast is unknown (e.g., if accessed via an app), omit the URL.

Cite the handbook itself only when you quote the rules. The official episode and series examples below are the Publication Manual §10.13 set reproduced by University of Iowa Libraries, Michigan State University Libraries, and Federation University. Some campus pages misspell Vedantam as Vendantam, or write Glass episode 433; the live This American Life record and the APA Style example both use 443.

Official APA 7 podcast examples (Publication Manual §10.13)

Reference list, episode (Glass, 2011):

Glass, I. (Host). (2011, August 12). Amusement park (No. 443) [Audio podcast episode]. In This American life. WBEZ Chicago. https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/443/amusement-park

In-text:

(Glass, 2011)

Reference list, whole series (Vedantam, 2015–present):

Vedantam, S. (Host). (2015–present). Hidden brain [Audio podcast]. NPR. https://www.npr.org/series/423302056/hidden-brain

In-text:

(Vedantam, 2015–present)

Those two URLs still resolve. The Glass archive address now redirects to the canonical episode page; the title is still Amusement Park, Ira Glass is still the host, and the Publication Manual date is still 12 August 2011. Apple Podcasts currently stamps the same installment 14 August 2011. Cite the date the show or the official example prints, not a store listing's UTC publish time. The Vedantam series address still opens the NPR Hidden Brain hub. Newer episodes of that show now also live at hiddenbrain.org; if you used a later installment, cite that episode's own date, title, and URL rather than copying the series line.

Official n.d. Episode: Laurie Santos, The Happiness Lab

The Common Reference Examples Guide last updated 3 March 2026 prints a different official podcast episode — one with no recoverable date. Laurie Santos hosts The Happiness Lab. The instructional-aid line uses n.d., numbers the installment (No. 1), and points at the Pushkin season-2 URL. The live episode page still opens under that address and still titles the hour Psychopaths and Superheroes. Do not invent a listen date or a store-listing date to replace n.d. See how to cite a source with no date for the same marker in other source types.

Official Common Reference Examples Guide podcast (3 March 2026)

Reference list (Santos, n.d.):

Santos, L. (Host). (n.d.). Psychopaths and superheroes (No. 1) [Audio podcast episode]. In The happiness lab with Dr. Laurie Santos. Pushkin Industries. https://www.happinesslab.fm/season-2-episodes/episode-1

In-text:

(Santos, n.d.)

Interview Episodes: Cite the Host, Name the Guest

The guest is almost never the author of the podcast reference. APA 7 puts the host in the author position so a reader can recover the episode from the same catalog the show uses. Name the guest in your sentence. Fresh Air does not number episodes, so the (No. …) slot drops out. Terry Gross's 19 November 2020 interview with Barack Obama is a live NPR page, not a reconstructed URL:

Verified interview episode (no episode number)

Reference list (Gross, 2020):

Gross, T. (Host). (2020, November 19). President Barack Obama [Audio podcast episode]. In Fresh air. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2020/11/19/936643487/president-barack-obama

In-text:

(Gross, 2020)

In prose:

Obama told Gross that he still has faith in democracy (Gross, 2020).

One Hidden Brain Episode, Not the Whole Series

The Publication Manual series line is the right entry only when the paper discusses the show as a whole. If you quote Raj Chetty on economic mobility, cite that hour. The 9 December 2019 Hidden Brain episode Zipcode Destiny: The Persistent Power of Place and Education is still on NPR under its original address. The show does not print an episode number on that page, so the (No. …) slot is omitted. In-text, the year is 2019, not 2015–present.

Verified Hidden Brain episode (live NPR page)

Reference list (Vedantam, 2019):

Vedantam, S. (Host). (2019, December 9). Zipcode destiny: The persistent power of place and education [Audio podcast episode]. In Hidden brain. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2019/12/09/786469762/zipcode-destiny-the-persistent-power-of-place-and-education

In-text:

(Vedantam, 2019)

Not this, if you quoted the episode:

(Vedantam, 2015–present)

Published Transcripts

Cite the audio episode if you listened. Cite a transcript only when a standalone published transcript is the document you opened. APA Style's transcript of an audiovisual work page, reprinted by Phillips Academy and Simmons University as Publication Manual §10.13 examples 93–94, uses [Audio podcast transcript] and drops the (Host) role label. The 22 July 2019 Hidden Brain hour Facts Aren't Enough: The Psychology of False Beliefs is the official sample; the live episode page is still on NPR.

Official APA Style podcast-transcript example

Reference list (Vedantam, 2019 transcript):

Vedantam, S. (2019, July 22). Facts aren't enough: The psychology of false beliefs [Audio podcast transcript]. In Hidden brain. NPR. https://www.npr.org/transcripts/743195213

In-text:

(Vedantam, 2019)

Live episode page (audio, if that is what you opened):

https://www.npr.org/2019/07/22/743195213/facts-arent-enough-the-psychology-of-false-beliefs

Dates, Titles, and Bracketed Descriptions

The date is the date of the episode, not the night you listened. Series titles are italic. Episode titles are roman. Everything in the reference uses sentence case: capitalize the first word, the first word after a colon, and proper nouns. This American life is correct in a reference; This American Life is the marketing title, not the APA title.

  • Episode date: Year, Month Day of the original release. Glass is (2011, August 12), not (2011).
  • Series date: 2015–present for a show still running, 2014–2018 for a finished run. Use an en dash, not a hyphen you hope the font will stretch.
  • No date: if the show site, the RSS item, and the official example truly print no date, write n.d. The Santos line is the official case. Commercial podcasts almost always print a date; do not use n.d. because you only looked at an app tile.
  • Episode title: sentence case, no italics, no quotation marks.
  • Episode number: (No. 443) only when the show itself numbers episodes. Omit the slot for Fresh Air and for the Hidden Brain hours on this page.
  • Bracketed description: [Audio podcast episode], [Video podcast episode], [Audio podcast], [Video podcast], or [Audio podcast transcript]. Do not write [Podcast], [Interview], or [Investigative podcast].
  • Transcripts and show notes: cite the episode if you listened. Use the transcript pattern only when a standalone published transcript is the object you opened.

Production Company vs Listening App

The source element is the production company — WBEZ Chicago, NPR, Pushkin Industries — not the app icon you tapped. APA 7 does not require you to name Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, or Pocket Casts. Prefer the show's own website URL. If the episode exists only inside an app and you cannot recover a URL, omit the URL rather than inventing one. The APA Style podcast page and the BVU restatement above make that omission explicit.

  • Show site first: thisamericanlife.org, npr.org, and happinesslab.fm outlast a store-listing URL.
  • Spotify exclusive: if the only public address is a Spotify show page, that URL is acceptable. Spotify is still not the author.
  • Several companies: copy the credit order and join them with semicolons when the credits name more than one.
  • Database versus URL: a library podcast database is not the production company. Cite the company, then add a URL only if it helps a reader recover the same episode.
  • Do not harvest a homepage, a season index, or a paywalled app deep link when the episode has its own page.
  • Hosts who change: when you cite the series as a whole and hosts rotate, the executive-producer option in the official note is the recoverability path. For one episode, credit that episode's host.

In-Text Citations and Timestamps

The in-text citation uses the same names that open the reference. One host is (Glass, 2011). Two hosts use an ampersand between surnames. Three or more become et al. from the first citation. For a quotation, APA 7 §8.28 treats the timestamp the way it treats a page number. Shippensburg University's APA audiovisual guide restates the locator rule this page follows:

Timestamp rule and worked in-text citations

To quote directly from audiovisual work, provide a time stamp for the beginning of the quotation in place of a page number.

Parenthetical template:

(Host, Year, 12:30)

Narrative template:

Host (Year, 12:30)

Hours:minutes:seconds template:

(Host, Year, 1:02:18)

Official series example (no timestamp needed):

(Vedantam, 2015–present)

Official n.d. example:

(Santos, n.d.)

Include only the beginning of the passage, not a range. A timestamp is required for a direct quotation from the audio. It is optional for a paraphrase, though it still helps on a long episode. Do not put the runtime of the episode in the reference.

Podcast vs Radio, Audiobook, and YouTube

Cite the version you used. Many public-radio hours are both a broadcast and a podcast; if you pressed play in a podcast app or on the show's episode page, use the podcast templates on this page. A one-off radio broadcast that was never issued as a podcast uses [Radio broadcast] instead. The same 3 March 2026 Common Reference Examples Guide prints Rebecca Hersher's 19 March 2020 NPR hour as radio, not as a podcast. An audiobook is a book. A YouTube upload is a video.

Official Common Reference Examples Guide radio broadcast (not a podcast)

Reference list (Hersher, 2020):

Hersher, R. (2020, March 19). Spring starts today all over America, which is weird [Radio broadcast]. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2020/03/19/817237429/spring-starts-today-all-over-america-which-is-weird

In-text:

(Hersher, 2020)

Nearby source types students mix with podcasts
What you openedAPA treatmentGuide
Show episode in a podcast app or on the show site[Audio podcast episode]This page
Whole feed or series page[Audio podcast]This page
Standalone published transcript[Audio podcast transcript]This page
One-off radio hour, never issued as a podcast[Radio broadcast]Hersher line above
User-uploaded YouTube file[Video]YouTube in APA
Feature film or TV episode[Film] or [TV series episode]Film and TV in APA
Published print or web interviewPeriodical or webpage patternInterviews in APA

Common Mistakes When Citing Podcasts in APA

  • Listing the guest as the author. Barack Obama does not write the Fresh Air reference. Terry Gross does, because she hosts the show. Name Obama in the sentence.
  • Dropping `(Host)`. The role in parentheses is part of the author element, not optional color. The published-transcript sample is the exception that drops it.
  • Italic episode titles. The episode is roman; the series after In is italic.
  • Title case in the reference. APA sentence-cases episode and series titles. Hidden brain, not Hidden Brain, in the reference list. In your prose you may still write the marketing title.
  • Year-only episode dates. Amusement Park is (2011, August 12), not (2011).
  • Invented episode numbers. If the RSS feed and the show site omit a number, omit it.
  • Invented medium labels. [Podcast], [Interview podcast], and [True-crime podcast] are not the official descriptors.
  • A store URL on every line. Prefer the show site. Omit the URL when you truly do not have one.
  • Using the listen date. The date is the release date printed by the publisher. The Santos line keeps n.d. rather than a day you pressed play.
  • Citing an audiobook as a podcast. A book read aloud is [Audiobook], not [Audio podcast episode].
  • Treating a radio broadcast as a podcast. Hersher's NPR hour in the Common Reference Examples Guide is [Radio broadcast].
  • Using a YouTube re-upload of a commercial episode as if it were the show feed. If the object is a user upload, it is a [Video] on the YouTube page.

Format the APA podcast citation

The APA generator and the podcast citation generator will ask for the host, the date, the episode title, the series title, the bracketed format, the production company, and a URL. Use this page to decide which names and which date belong in those fields, then paste the result into your reference list. The short podcast-in-APA walkthrough shows one formatted line; this URL keeps the official strings and the failure modes.

Open the APA citation generatorOpen the podcast citation generator

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I cite the host or the guest of a podcast in APA 7?
Cite the host as the author and put (Host) after the name. Name the guest in your sentence. The Fresh Air Obama example on this page is (Gross, 2020), not (Obama, 2020).
What if the podcast has no episode number?
Omit the (No. …) slot. APA 7 includes the number only when the show itself uses one. Fresh Air and the Hidden Brain hours on this page have no number; This American Life episode 443 and Happiness Lab episode 1 do.
How do I cite a podcast with no date in APA?
Write n.d. in both the reference and the in-text citation. The official Common Reference Examples Guide line is Santos, L. (Host). (n.d.) for The Happiness Lab episode Psychopaths and Superheroes. Do not substitute the day you listened.
Should I include the episode length?
No. Runtime does not belong in the reference. Put a starting timestamp in the in-text citation when you quote the audio, using the form (Host, Year, 12:30).
How do I cite a podcast I heard on Spotify or Apple Podcasts?
Use the same host–date–title pattern. Prefer the show's own website URL. If the episode is exclusive to one app and that is the only public address, the app URL is acceptable. If you have no URL, omit it. Do not list the app as the author.
How do I cite an entire podcast series in APA?
Italicize the series title, use a year range such as 2015–present, write [Audio podcast], and name the production company. The official Hidden Brain line on this page is the Publication Manual example. Cite a single episode instead if you quote or paraphrase a moment.
How do I format a timestamp in an APA in-text citation?
Put the starting time after the year, using the form (Host, Year, 12:30). Use H:MM:SS when the moment is past the first hour and MM:SS when it is not. Include only the beginning of the passage, not a range. APA 7 §8.28 is the rule.
Do I italicize the episode title?
No. The episode title is roman sentence case. The series title that follows In is italic. A whole-series reference italicizes the show title because that title is now the work.
Can I cite podcast show notes or a transcript instead of the audio?
Cite the episode if you listened. Use [Audio podcast transcript] only when a standalone published transcript is the document you opened. The official Hidden Brain sample is Vedantam (2019, July 22), Facts aren't enough, at the NPR transcript URL on this page.
Is a radio story cited the same way as a podcast?
Only if you used the podcast feed or the show's episode page. A one-off radio broadcast that was never issued as a podcast uses [Radio broadcast]. The official Common Reference Examples Guide sample is Hersher (2020, March 19), Spring starts today all over America, which is weird.