Podcast no notifications (never worked)

I'm only subscribed to 2 podcast and have never gotten notificaitons on my iPhone, ever, not once for podcast. New episodes are downloaded. I was streaming only but thinking new episodes had to be downloaded to be notified of new episodes I set them to download but still don't receive any notification.

- Notifications for the Podcasts app are turned on under settings

- The notifications by show in the Podcasts app are turned on for all shows

- Background refreshing for the Podcasts app is turned on

I've read every article on enabling notifications just in case there was something I didn't know. But everything is enabled correctly. I'm using an iPhone 6s and 12.* whatever the latest IOS is as there are no updates available.