Episode Types

Episode types label your episodes for podcast apps and the iTunes podcast specification. Benecaster’s type system is fully configurable — every show starts with four default types, and you can add as many custom types as you need.

Default Episode Types

When you create a show, Benecaster provisions four types automatically:

Type label	Slug	iTunes mapping	Typical use
Full Episode	full	full	Standard episodes — all regular content
Trailer	trailer	trailer	Preview clips and season teasers
Bonus	bonus	bonus	Supplemental content outside the main episode sequence
Sponsored	sponsored	full	Sponsored content (reported as Full to podcast apps)

You can rename any of these types to match your show’s terminology. The slug is generated when the type is created and cannot be changed.

What Each Type Means

Full Episode

The standard episode type. Use for all regular content. If you’re unsure which type to use, Full is almost always correct.

Maps to <itunes:episodeType>full</itunes:episodeType> in RSS. Most podcast apps don’t distinguish Full episodes visually — it’s the expected default content type.

Trailer

A short promotional clip for your show or for a specific season. Podcast apps like Apple Podcasts treat trailers differently — they may be highlighted before someone subscribes, or shown at the top of a season in apps that support season view.

Use Trailer for:

• A short clip introducing what your show is about
• A season preview before new episodes drop
• A coming-soon announcement for an upcoming series

Maps to <itunes:episodeType>trailer</itunes:episodeType> in RSS.

Bonus

Supplemental content outside the main episode sequence — behind-the-scenes recordings, outtakes, extended cuts, companion material. Some apps display bonus episodes separately from the main episode list.

Maps to <itunes:episodeType>bonus</itunes:episodeType> in RSS.

Custom Episode Types

You can add types beyond the four defaults. Common reasons:

• You want labels that match your show’s language (“Deep Dive”, “Quick Take”, “Interview”, “Solo”)
• You want a dedicated type for sponsored content with a different label
• You produce content that fits into distinct categories you want to track separately

Every custom type maps to one of the three iTunes canonical values (full, trailer, or bonus). This mapping determines how the type appears in podcast apps and RSS feed validators — your custom label is visible only in the Benecaster admin.

Manage episode types in Show Settings → Episode Types. See Show Settings for the full management interface (add, edit, delete, and reassign).

Episode Types in the Episode Editor

The Episode type field is in the Details tab of the episode editor.

When a show has only one configured type, the type field is hidden — there’s nothing to choose. Once you add a second type, the field becomes visible and populates from the show’s type list.

The type select stores the type’s slug value. If you later rename a type (“Full Episode” → “Standard”), the existing episodes continue to use the correct type — the slug is unchanged.

Episode Type and Numbering

Episode auto-numbering applies to types that map to the full iTunes type only. When Benecaster assigns an auto-incremented number to a new episode, it counts existing published episodes that use a full-mapped type and increments from there.

Types mapped to trailer or bonus do not receive automatic numbers. You can set a number manually or leave the field blank — both are valid.

This also applies to custom types: a custom type mapped to full participates in auto-numbering; one mapped to bonus does not.

Episode Type on Episode Pages

When an episode has a type configured, the type label is displayed in the title area of the episode’s public page — for example, “Trailer” or “Bonus” appears as a badge near the episode title. Full Episodes do not display a label by default (Full is the expected default and labelling every episode “Full Episode” would be redundant).

This label is output by the episode/title.php template part and is filterable via the benecaster_episode_type_label filter if you want to change the display text or suppress it entirely.

Episode Type and Tier Access

Episode type has no effect on tier-based access control. All episode types support the same tier availability configuration.

A common pattern: make trailers publicly accessible (available to everyone, including non-subscribers) while keeping bonus and full content gated to paid tiers. Episode type labels the content for podcast apps; your tier availability settings control who can actually listen.