With Netflix now streaming original podcasts and Apple announcing a “category-leading video experience” on its app this spring, the meaning of the word “podcast” has grown increasingly diffuse.

It was much easier to pin down during the medium’s mid-aughts infancy. Back then, a podcast was simply asynchronous talk radio—the natural next step after moving from terrestrial radio, to satellite platforms like SiriusXM, to a new and purely digital format that could be downloaded and consumed on demand. 

In the years since, the definition has vastly........

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