

It should be doable to so some audio analysis of the episodes. They “always” (I am sure some forget every now and then), have an outro and intro around the ad block. With a clearly defined jingle per podcast. You should be able to make a program that analyses the audio and listens for that block and cuts it out for you.
I think that is just an effect of growing, or at least not shrinking and sticking around. There is ni point in spaming somewhere where there are no active users.