Well its nice to know it isn't just me. Thanks for all the replies!
I know they are available on YouTube, but I think most of us who listen are doing so in our cars. Even "listening" to YouTube is going to use mobile data where pre-downloading a podcast while on WiFi and then listening on the go doesn't use any. Also, I don't always have a strong data connection when driving around (depends where I am) which makes listening to something streaming very frustrating.
Downloading the audio and listening to it is an option, just much less convenient than using a podcast app. I assume most work like iTunes and you can pre-download via the app, you can start/stop as needed and when you are finished listening it automatically deletes the downloaded file so you aren't using up storage with a bunch of old episodes you have already heard.
Hopefully, the team will be back from Italy soon and will be able to fix the problem. I just hope it isn't so low priority that it takes another week - I've run out of listening material! LOL