Depends on the podcast. Well-produced ones are tightly edited, and the moderator keeps the conversation tight. That takes some work (and budget) to do. I find I

Depends on the podcast. Well-produced ones are tightly edited, and the moderator keeps the conversation tight. That takes some work (and budget) to do. I find I mainly listen to big-budget podcasts, not on purpose, but because I won’t put up with low information density and all that is left after that are podcasts with the budget and production values to keep it tight.