MacOS – How to assign an image to a podcast in iTunes

I have been having this problem and while I don't use the rating quite the way you do, I get annoyed when new episodes are automatically assigned a rating.

I found this solution tonight for iTunes 12.5.1. I selected the podcast which was getting auto assigned (2 stars in my case). It's a very frequently updated podcast as episodes are short. I set View->View As->List. In the upper right corner there is a circle with three dots across the middle. Click on that and the rating option appears. I set the default back to no rating and all the hollow star auto ratings went away, even for episodes I was finished listening to.

The podcasts part of iTunes just manage those you have either subscribed to, or subscribed and unsubscribed but still have episodes. It looks like your issue is related to trying to manually manage these, which will let you add the files to your iPod, but iTunes really doesn't know about the structure behind them.

I would recommend having it manage them for you. In that case, you can also tell it to delete those (or keep those) you want after you listen.

For example, I have a couple of concerts from NPR on my iPod that I keep, but my other daily/weekly podcasts delete after they have been listened too.

I expect the reason you are seeing the difference between iTunes and the iPod is the way you are currently mixing the two methods.