In Apple’s Podcasts app, older unplayed episodes are disappearing from the feed.

I’ve found that with several podcasts (particularly ones that have run for many years with hundreds of episodes) their content is vanishing. It appears as though episodes are being removed from the app in the order of oldest-to-newest. As of today, shows like “Attitudes!” show nothing earlier than episode #577, “Something about the Beatles” begins with episode #123, and so forth. These lost episodes are not being marked as ‘played’ and are not searchable even by exact title… Notably, my ‘Saved’ episodes are all still available in my account, but when I try searching for them by name, I get nothing; they’re just wholly erased from the feed. These episodes all seem available elsewhere or on the show’s own sites, just not here on Apple. So what’s up? Is this a bug, or some kind of intentional design? Thank you for any insight or solutions!