Podcast app randomly opens and asks me to login - MacOS Sonoma 14.4.1

Every ten or fifteen minutes the MacOS Podcast app opens itself up and asks me to login. This has just started happening this week and I can't figure out what is causing it.

Because of the login dialog box, I have to force quit it each time. This is particularly annoying if you're doing something in a different app in full screen and then Podcast app randomly opens and pulls you out of full screen to deal with the login prompt.

What is causing Podcasts to open? I thought it was hand-off but I can't trigger podcast app popping up by opening the app on my phone, or plugging my phone in and opening the app, or any similar combination of actions.

From what I have read, it seems that I can't delete the podcast app to stop it from popping up either.

Is anyone else having this issue and how have you solved it? Thanks.

My machine is a Macbook Pro M1 Max (16" / 64GB) running Sonoma 14.4.1