How do I stop iTunes from automatically assigning a hollow star rating to podcasts?

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.

I'm not aware of any way to turn this off. Perhaps you could work around this issue by giving the podcast "album" a rating of 3 stars?

Then your smart playlist for delete could check for 2 star rating. Your smart playlist for "unreated" would check for 3 star rating. Your smart playlist for "keeper" could be 4+ stars…