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Episodes Overview

Episodes are the Benecaster content unit in Benecaster. Each episode belongs to a show, carries its own audio (or video) file, and appears in the private RSS feeds of the subscribers whose tier has access to it.

What an Episode Is

An episode in Benecaster is a WordPress custom post type (benecaster_episode). When you create an episode, you set:

  • Title and description — the show notes your subscribers read
  • Show — which show this episode belongs to (see Show field below)
  • Audio or video file URL — hosted on your podcast hosting provider; Benecaster links to it, it does not host the file
  • Episode type — Full, Trailer, Bonus, or a custom type you’ve defined
  • Season and episode numbers — optional; used in RSS and displayed in podcast apps that support seasons
  • Tier availability — which of your subscription tiers can access this episode, and when (see Episode Defaults below)
  • Artwork — per-episode artwork; falls back to show artwork in the feed if not set
  • Transcript URL — a link to a transcript file; required for the <podcast:transcript> RSS tag; the Transcription Service add-on can populate this automatically, or you can enter a URL manually
  • Chapter markers — timestamps, titles, and optional images embedded in the feed as a JSON chapters file
  • Custom fields — any additional structured data you’ve configured for your show (references, guests, etc.)

Episode Defaults

New episodes inherit two sets of defaults from your show settings, so you don’t have to configure each episode from scratch:

Availability dates — the dates on which each tier gains access to a new episode. You set a staggered release window once at the show level (e.g. Premium on publish day, Basic one week later, Free two weeks later) and every new episode pre-fills with those dates. You can override the dates for any individual episode without affecting the show-level defaults.

Tier visibility — how each tier sees an episode it doesn’t yet have access to: full content and player, teaser excerpt only, or completely hidden. These visibility states are also configured per tier at the show level and inherited by new episodes. Override them per episode when an individual episode needs different treatment (e.g. a trailer that should be publicly visible even though your Free tier is normally hidden).

Both defaults are managed in Show Settings → Episodes. When editing an episode, the Access tab shows whether the episode is inheriting show defaults or has been overridden.

Show Field

The Show field in the episode editor’s Details sidebar tab controls which show an episode belongs to.

Single-show sites — the Show field displays as a read-only label showing your show’s name. No action needed.

Multi-show sites — the Show field is a dropdown listing all your active shows. Select the show this episode belongs to when creating it. An episode can only belong to one show at a time.

Moving a published episode to a different show — if you change the Show field on a published episode, Benecaster displays a confirmation dialog before saving. Moving a published episode changes which feed it appears in and which subscribers can access it. The dialog explains the impact and requires explicit confirmation. Draft episodes can be reassigned without a confirmation prompt.

Episode Pages

Every published episode gets a public-facing web page on your WordPress site. The episode page shows the episode title, player, description, and any custom fields you’ve configured.

How episode pages and feeds relate:

  • The RSS feed is what podcast apps use — authenticated by each subscriber’s token, delivers audio directly to the app
  • The episode page is for web browsers — useful for sharing links, show notes with references, and SEO

Tier access applies to episode pages too. Visitors who aren’t subscribed at the required tier see teaser content and an upgrade prompt. Subscribers see the full episode.

You can link directly to an episode page from your email broadcasts, show notes, or social posts. The URL follows WordPress’s permalink structure for the benecaster_episode post type — typically something like yourdomain.com/episode/episode-title/.

To disable episode pages (if you prefer to keep everything inside the RSS feed), go to Show Settings → Advanced and turn off Episode single pages. The episode archive page can be disabled separately.

Episode Archive

Benecaster generates an episode listing page — the archive — that displays all published episodes for a show. This is the /episodes/ or equivalent URL for your show, useful as a public episode index.

Like episode pages, the archive respects tier access: locked episodes show a teaser and upgrade prompt.

To disable the archive without affecting individual episode pages, go to Show Settings → Advanced and turn off Episode archive page.

How Episodes Appear in Feeds

An episode appears in a subscriber’s private feed when:

  1. The episode is published (not draft or scheduled)
  2. The subscriber’s tier has an availability date set for that episode
  3. That availability date is in the past (or today)

Episodes with no availability date set for a tier do not appear in that tier’s feed — they’re not locked, they’re simply absent. Set an availability date (including a past date to make it immediately accessible) to include an episode in a tier’s feed.

See Setting Tier Availability for the full per-tier, per-episode availability system.

Locked Episode States

When a visitor or subscriber doesn’t have access to an episode, Benecaster renders a locked state rather than the full content. Four locked state variants exist:

Locked indicator + upgrade prompt (logged-in subscriber, wrong tier)
A padlock indicator appears in place of the player or content. Below it, an upgrade prompt links to your pricing or subscribe page. The copy and HTML are filterable via benecaster_locked_content_message and benecaster_upgrade_prompt_html.

Locked indicator + login prompt (logged-out visitor)
The player area shows a padlock and a prompt to log in or subscribe. The copy is filterable via benecaster_locked_content_message.

Preview clip player (no code required)
If the episode has both a Preview clip URL and a main audio URL set — in the episode editor’s Media tab, see Episode Editor — Media — a visitor who can’t hear the full episode gets a working player with the preview clip instead of the padlock and prompt. This shows up on the episode page, on the episode’s archive card, and anywhere the [benecaster_player] shortcode is used. On the episode page, the subscribe section still appears below the clip player; on the archive card and in the shortcode, the clip player replaces the locked message entirely. Subscribers who can hear the episode get the full file as normal. This is the no-code path for letting non-subscribers hear a snippet, without writing a filter — if you need a clip that isn’t stored on the episode itself (fetched from your host on request, for example), see the show-preview-player-to-non-subscribers recipe.

Teaser content (optional)
You can configure a portion of the episode description to appear as teaser text for non-subscribers — in the episode’s Visibility settings or globally in Show Settings. Sources: episode description excerpt (by word count), a custom teaser field, or no teaser. Filterable via benecaster_teaser_content.

These templates live in templates/global/locked-message.php, templates/global/upgrade-prompt.php, and templates/global/login-prompt.php and can be overridden from a theme. See Template Overrides.

Disabling Episode Pages and Archives

Two toggles in Show Settings → Advanced control whether Benecaster renders public episode URLs:

Episode single pages — when disabled, all individual episode URLs return a 404. Useful when you only want episodes accessible through the private RSS feed, not via the web.

Episode archive page — when disabled, the /episode/ archive URL returns a 404. Individual episode pages still work unless the single pages toggle is also off.

Disabling the archive removes the has_archive registration for the episode CPT — you’ll need to flush WordPress permalinks (Settings → Permalinks → Save) after changing this setting.

Episode Numbering

Benecaster can assign episode numbers automatically. Auto-numbering applies to episodes whose type maps to the iTunes full type. Trailer and Bonus type episodes don’t receive automatic numbers — set them manually or leave them blank.

Auto-numbering is configured per show in Show Settings → Episodes.

See Also

See Also

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