Documentation

Podcast Sponsor Finder is a remote MCP connector. It gives Claude tools that find a podcast in Apple's podcast directory, download its newest episodes and listen to them for advertising. Claude gets back, for each episode, the brands advertised, the kind of ad, the minute it starts and the words spoken. The listening is done by Google's Gemini model on our servers; nothing is installed on your computer.

Set up

Connector address: https://podcastsponsorfinder.com/api/mcp. You sign in once with an email and password or a Google account.

Claude (web, desktop, iPhone, Android): add it in one click, or Customize → Connectors → Add custom connector.
Claude Code: claude mcp add --transport http podcast-sponsor-finder https://podcastsponsorfinder.com/api/mcp, then /mcp to sign in.
Cursor and other MCP apps: add {"url": "https://podcastsponsorfinder.com/api/mcp"} to your MCP settings.

Tools

All tools are read-only: they read public podcast audio or your usage and return text. None of them changes anything in your accounts.

find_sponsors (show or episode_url, episodes (optional, 1 to 5, default 3)): Listens to a show's newest episodes, or to one episode, and lists the brands that advertised in them. For each ad it gives the brand, whether it is a host read, a produced spot or a presenting line, the minute it starts and the words spoken. It also totals how many of the episodes each brand was heard in. Each episode heard counts against your monthly episodes.
check_ad_read (episode_url, brand): Says whether one brand's ad was heard in one episode, and returns the words of the ad and the minute it starts. Counts as one episode. A “not heard” answer means not heard in the copy our server downloaded.
find_show (query): Looks a podcast up by name in Apple's podcast directory and lists its newest episodes with their dates, lengths and links. Useful to get an episode link for check_ad_read, or to pick between shows with similar names. Uses no episodes.
check_job (job_id): Returns the result of a find_sponsors or check_ad_read request that is still listening. Requests that take longer than about 40 seconds hand back a job_id, and Claude fetches the result with this tool.
my_usage (none): Shows which account is signed in, its plan, and the episodes used this month.
whoami (none): Shows which account the connector is signed in with. Useful to check the connection.

Example prompts

Who sponsors The President's Daily Brief?
Listen to the last 5 episodes of <show> and tell me which brands are in more than one.
Find the sponsors in the newest episode of each of these shows and give me one list of brands: <show>, <show>, <show>
Was an ad for <brand> heard in this episode? Give me the words and the minute it starts: <episode link>
Quote the host reads in this episode in full: <episode link>

What a result contains

A total: each brand and how many of the episodes it was heard in, for example “2 of 3”.
Per episode: its title and date, how much of it was heard, and one line per ad with the brand, the kind of ad, the minute it starts and the words spoken.
The kinds of ad are host read, produced spot, and presenting line (such as “brought to you by …”).
It lists paid ads for third-party brands. It tries to leave out the show's own products, promos for other podcasts and brands that only come up in conversation.
An episode is marked partial when the download was much shorter than the episode's listed length or part of it couldn't be heard. Ads may be missing from a partial episode.
Every result ends with this note: “Heard in the copy of each episode that our server downloaded (United States). Ads inserted at download time differ by listener, place and day, so another listener may hear other ads. An ad the host reads can be inserted too, so the kind of ad doesn't show whether every listener hears it.”

What it can't tell you

It hears one copy of each episode. Our server downloads the episode and that copy is what gets heard. Many podcasts insert ads at download time, and those differ by listener, place and day, so another listener may hear other ads. An ad the host reads can be inserted too, so the kind of ad doesn't show whether every listener hears it.
It covers a show's recent episodes, nothing wider. It answers “who advertised in this show's recent episodes”. It has no database of every show a brand sponsors, and no ad spend, audience numbers or sponsor contact details.
It is a model's hearing. A brand name can be misheard and an ad can be missed. Times are within a few seconds. Check the minute before you rely on a quote. A result is not proof that an ad did or didn't run.
Podcasts with a public feed only. Shows that are exclusive to one app can't be fetched. YouTube isn't covered, and there are no file uploads.

Supported links, time and plan limits

A show's name, looked up in Apple's podcast directory. If several shows share the name, Claude can list them with find_show.
One episode's link from Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Pocket Casts or the podcast host's episode page. A Spotify link works when the show also has a public feed.
About a minute per episode that hasn't been heard before. An episode that anyone looked up in the last 90 days comes back quickly from a shared cache.
Up to 5 episodes a request. An episode is heard up to the three-hour mark, and a file over 450 MB is refused.
Free plan: 3 episodes a month. Pro: 100 episodes a month, fair use (pricing). Each episode heard counts once, from the cache or not, in a sponsor lookup or an ad-read check. Usage resets on the 1st of each month (UTC).

Independence

Podcast Sponsor Finder reports the ads it hears as facts. It is not paid by, sponsored by or affiliated with any show or brand it names, and it shows no ads itself. It is not affiliated with Anthropic, Apple, Spotify or Google. Brand and show names belong to their owners.

Privacy

There is nothing to upload. We store your account id, what you asked for (a show name or an episode link), each job's result for 30 days, and your monthly episode count. The ads heard in a public episode are kept for 90 days in a cache shared between users, with no link to who asked. Episode audio is downloaded to be heard and deleted when the job ends. The connector does not read your conversations, memory or files; it only receives what Claude sends to a tool. Full details: privacy policy.

Troubleshooting

“No podcast named … was found”: check the spelling, or share an episode link instead.
“Has no episodes with public audio” or “couldn't find that episode's audio in the podcast's public feed”: the show is exclusive to one app or behind a paywall, and can't be fetched.
“Still listening”: a request with several new episodes takes a few minutes; Claude fetches the result with check_job.
A brand you heard is missing: it may be an inserted ad that our copy didn't get, or the model missed it. The result says which copy was heard and when.
Pro doesn't show in Claude: ask Claude to run my_usage and check the email matches the one you used on your account page.
Anything else: support@wikivec.com.