HowTo Manually Subscribe to Podcasts on iTunes

One of my pet peeves is country restrictions on subscribing to podcasts in iTunes. I live in the Philippines and even though the publishers of the audio and video podcasts allow people from outside the US to download their stuff, iTunes will not allow you to subscribe through the iTunes App Store. I get a message that says the content isn't available in the Philippine store or something like that. 

While there are other podcast aggregators out there, I find iTunes offers the best syncing of both audio and video podcasts on iPod devices. I tried other aggregators but I've found their best suited for other devices. I would mind using something like  DoubleTwist to manage music on the RCA Lyra my wife has or say the Creative Zen Vision that my friend owns. But for iPods in general, from the older gen ones like my 5th Gen iPod Video to the newer iPod Touch models, I personally prefer to manage my subscriptions through iTunes.

Good news is there is a way to get around this. Use the RSS link to subscribe to the podcast directly from the publisher's feed. Here's how to do that from iTunes.


1. Go to the website and look for the RSS subscribe link (the sample below is the page for This Week in Tech) :

2. Copy the URL of the RSS subcribe page:

3. Click on the Advanced link on iTunes and then click on Subscribe to Podcast:

4. Paste the RSS page's URL in the box and click on OK when finished: 

5. After that, you should see the podcast feed in your subscriptions: