Unpublished podcast episode still gets downloads but no stats on Apple Podcasts

The most common way a podcast is created is that there is a feed - a text file in a specific format which lists the episodes - and the actual media file, audio or video. Both may be on the same server, or on separate servers, it's immaterial.

When you submit a podcast to Apple, they host a copy of the feed (for quyick access) and the main image, but not the media file itself: the feed contains the link to that in the data for each episode.

When you access the podcast on Apple, it displays the information in the feed in its own format, and you can access the media file which, remember, is not hosted by Apple but by your server.

People who subscribe on a Mac, as opposed to iOS devices (as I understand it, not having one), use the information from Apple to access the actual feed directly from your server. The Podcasts app on their computer displays the information, and download or streams (effectively the same thing) the audio or video directly from your server, So at this point Apple is no longer involved, having in effect acted as an agent.

This means that if you delete an episode within Podcasts Connect it makes no difference to these subscribers, and even if you delete the episode from the feed, they still have that on their computer. If you leave the media file in place, they can still access it. They may have downloaded it, in which case of course further plays won't show as downloads (and you can't stop them playing it).

So if you removed the episode from the feed but left the media file on your server, anyone who downloaded the feed before you amended it will still see the file and be able to download it. It won't show on Apple's stats for the reason explained above, though I would have thought the server logs would show the individual user's IP numbers. Perhaps it's just identifying the app.

If you want to put a stop to this you will have to delete the media files. As to the strange 'clumping' of the downloads, I have no idea, and I doubt there is any way of finding out.