It would make sense to me to replace the part “[, Series 1234: “Subseries Title”][#1234]” with the release date (YYYY-MM-DD), if there is no other identifier.
Even if there is a title that follows (I don’t know if this would be controversial - my experience with podcast files is that being able to file-sort in order of release date is critical).
It seems like the file sorting is a sticking point. I know that there is a preference for supporting the default file naming scheme in Picard, but I have personally switched to “Release Group Series/Release Group Series Number - Release Title” which is far better than brute forcing the issue with prepended dates as it allows mixing single episodes and collections.
There is another lingering issue that I am not quite sure how to handle. Sometimes, episodes are released under multiple series. This is fairly common for BBC radio series which are broadcast as subseries or standalone episodes of “showcase” series like these
I suspect that these are probably better understood as release series and not release group series because they only really pertain to a single broadcast release. However, it’s not clear how these should appear in the titling scheme. For example, this series:
Should this be:
Drama on 4, “Almonds and Raisins”, Episode 1
Or just:
Almonds and Raisins, Episode 1
and should the release be:
Drama on 4, “Almonds and Raisins”
but the release group simply
Almonds and Raisins
because Drama on 4 really only applies to the initial release.
I thought I was echoing your suggestion, to put the date in if there is no other identifier/episode number/etc?
If you disagree with the part where I say to add the date even if a title follows, I think that isn’t a hill I would die on.
I will mention that you might be one of the only people on this earth who has made good use of tagging with MB’s series 
P.S. Do you need scripts to achieve your series-based tagging? If not, it could be a good candidate for a “podcast” preset in Picard.
I don’t currently have time to look at your ‘used in various series’ examples too closely. But it seems that they currently don’t have the program name included in the title, and that seems correct to me.
If they are being broadcast across multiple shows, in different orders, then I think they function more as standalone stories than what I would usually consider a “series”. And I don’t necessarily think the original series they were broadcast within needs to be ‘married’ into the title.
A bit of a tricky situation, though, when it comes to writing guidelines.
Yes, I think we agree on that. I’m not sure about the date plus the title as the date, IMO, is really just the fall back when there is no other identifier.
I will mention that you might be one of the only people on this earth who has made good use of tagging with MB’s series
P.S. Do you need scripts to achieve your series-based tagging? If not, it could be a good candidate for a “podcast” preset in Picard.
It took me a while to realize there was a simple solutions. I use the _releasegroup_series and _releasegroup_seriesnumber which uses the release relationships setting. So I guess its not a strictly “default” experience, but it doesn’t require any plugins.
The one issue though is related to the multiple series for release groups. If a release group is part of multiple series it doesn’t always use the correct series. For example, some of the Prisoner audio dramas use the Big Finish Audiobook series.
I have talked to @reosarevok about making this change for podcast guidelines/adding a podcast title section to the broadcast guidelines.
As discussed in the few posts above, this would remove the [yyyy-mm-dd] prefix from podcast release and track title guideline, and add it after the title where there is no other episode identification/differentiation.
Reo has agreed, assuming that everyone agrees with the change here.
I’d just like to tag in a few more podcast editors so we don’t accidentally push through something stupid. If you see any issues with this please speak up @IvanDobsky, @Paradox729, @arturus, @UltimateRiff, @sound.and.vision, @teethfairy, @subtlecoolness - please tag in anyone else that you know that may have an interest in podcasts in the DB.
Personally, removing the date prefix would make me three times more likely to add a podcast to MB 
tbh someone just needs to make a seeder for podcast services (like spotify for example) to get the numbers input quicker, takes a long time at the moment
but for this change no problems on my side
Date before or after the title does not matter. As long as they are still sortable and title is only the show name.
Where this will cause a problem is when shows have subtitles. Then I’d say “no” as you’d end up with a mess of files with no clean order.
When date is up front you know which order to listen to your back catalogue.
Personally I’d not let Picard rename my files. I tend to have yyyy-mm-dd showname-subtitle [show number or Chapter number or Episode]. Some of my podcasts go on for many years and I want to easily be able to find them and know which to listen to next.
I have dedicated myself to updating metadata for one podcast only, and it’s a tame one. Every episode has a number, and a title, and it’s not hard to find the release date. Changing style to remove the date from the title won’t materially affect me either way. I will follow the agreed-upon style.
Yambs supports seeding podcasts from an archived RSS feed.
@aerozol I think this is a great step for improving the management of podcasts releases. Given how important sorting is for these types of releases, building out the UX to better support series would be a great long term goal. For example, being able to add a release group directly to a series during creation 
Correction: I just realized you can do that! If you open the create new release group dialogue from the add release creation page. Learn something new everyday I guess Still it might be worth surfacing the feature a little better for people who are unaware.
I looked today and I’ve added over 2000 broadcast releases at this point, many of which are podcasts. At the very least this is a great opportunity to go back and review all my mistakes over the years 
Is this only going to affect podcasts with people talking? For numbered podcast mixes that were not broadcasted live, the date is pretty much always excluded and they follow a similar scheme to mix CD series like Fabriclive. For example, Fact Magazine.
I don’t mind the date prefix, but I’ve been more of a bootleg editor than a podcast editor, so the style always felt normal to me. That said, I think this change is reasonable.
I didn’t know I’m one of the podcast editors, lol
I for one have always found it odd that the date gets added, so I’m all for removing it~
Examples like this is why I don’t think this needs a one answer fits all. If the shows are numbered, that should be enough. If there are no episode number, then the date is needed.
yep i think the logic should be:
Does the show have a unique title or numbering system as part of its title.
Example:
Talking Simpsons – Radio Bart
Abroad in Japan Podcast #157
Otherwise, create the entry with the Podcast name and prefix the title with the full date of initial broadcast
I would probably just have a distinction for things that were broadcasted live at a certain date vs. things that was released straight to download. The date for the former is very often not the same.
@diskotechjam: It seems the main point raised (by @IvanDobsky and @sound.and.vision) is that it is useful to include the date when there is an identifier like a show name, if that identifier does not indicate the order.
e.g. these would follow the new podcast guideline:
Show A, Season 1, Episode 1: “This is the Episode Title”
Show B, 2025-03-30: “This is the Episode Title”
Does that sound okay? You were already on the fence about this and it seems this would be the least controversial option.
imo it gets a bit messy because if you want to consistently script in the release date in Picard, for all your podcasts, you would end up with 2025-03-30: Show B, 2025-03-30: “This is the Episode Title”. Personally I sort by release date in my library/player, not file/release name, so I don’t really mind.
They aren’t following the existing broadcast guideline, as far as I can tell. If you wanted to align them with the guidelines then FACT Mix 117: Subeena would become something like:
Current guideline: 2010-01-22: FACT, Mix 117, “Subeena”
Proposed guideline: FACT, Mix 117, “Subeena”
My impression is that a release/recording for something that was broadcasted live would retain the date prefix, and then a (presumably later) podcast release would omit the prefix/follow the podcast guidelines. Does that make sense?
This highlights a difficulty in this guideline change, which is writing a clear distinction between broadcasts and podcasts. But imo MusicBrainz has to cross that bridge eventually anyway. I think we (or reo haha) can finesse the language if this change is agreed on.
I’d suggest also allow shorthand of Show A, s01e01, “This is the Episode Title”.
My Podcast tool (gPodder) has been grabbing my podcasts for over a decade and uses “yyyy-mm-dd, Show name, Episode name” for the file names as it is a habit I don’t change. 
Not everyone has that feature. Feed a USB stick of MP3 files to an old music player like a car stereo. Or look in the file folder. Or just look at a Release Group on the MB page. It helps when there is a visual order in a title for something that is episodic.
My usual “go to” media players don’t have quick ways to playback by date order. Only just realised it is also missing from KODI.
Much of BBC Radio in the UK makes its way onto Podcasts. Some as the exact shows, others as extended episodes. They make a lot of use of BBC Sounds platform for this. As well as putting the shows out on iTunes, etc.
You are rapidly hitting that common ground you speak of. Channels like Radio 5 can go full podcast some nights. Sometimes the evening can have episodes of external podcasts not specifically made for the channel.
When you look at a channel like that you see that the bosses can picture a future of radio being accessed by people as mostly podcasts and not just live. It is already here today - broadcast is podcast is broadcast.
Makes sense to me, it’s basically ‘Show Title, Episode Index, Episode Title’ where episode index is whatever makes sense for that show, including date. Having said that, series are not always consistent with episode numbering. Special and promotional episodes are usually outside the episode index. For example, this bonus episode of the Mindscape podcast
If our concern is sorting, switching between the series-episode index and the date index would not sort this episode correctly. For what it’s worth, I usually insert these into the series entity using the previous episode number plus a special indicator, for example, 088B for this episode, but I don’t think that would be appropriate for the title.
I think another way to look at this distinction would be release status, bootleg vs official. It’s fairly common for radio broadcasts to be recorded and shared but never officially released. Therefore, if a recording exists, we consider it unofficial and revert to the bootleg naming scheme. If there is an official release, for example, a podcast, we use these updated guidelines.
Yeah, for anything in the past decade, I just treat the BBC radio page as a release and use the earliest broadcast for the date.
The difficult stuff is when you get into older releases and broadcast information is harder to find. Or, in the case of syndicated shows, a singular broadcast date is not applicable. For example, these Joe Frank shows I recently added. It’s impossible to pin these down to anything more specific that the year they were broadcast.
Thanks all. I’m going to work with reo to make this change happen - you have raised some secondary factors, but I can’t see that anyone disagrees with the core idea of removing (or moving) the date prefix.
Once it’s in, we can address anything that comes up and keep the momentum going.
The below is a work in progress:
Broadcast/Podcast: A release, often episodic, that is broadcast via radio, television or internet.
…
A podcast is a audio show, often episodic, available for download on the internet.
Unless specified below, follow the Broadcast release guidelines above for these releases
Follow this format: Program Name[, Series 1234][, #1234][, “Program Title”][: Location]
If there is no show number or alternate identifier, follow this format: Program Name[, YYYY-MM-DD][, “Program Title”][: Location]
Examples: