Turn off iCloud sycning between iTunes and Podcasts app?

How can I turn off iCould syncing between iTunes the Podcasts app, and just do it the old fashioned way over a wire?

I listen to podcasts on my iPhone. iTunes still downloads all the same podcasts on my Mac, but they're never marked as played on there through iCloud sync. Then whenever I connect my phone to the computer it overwrites all the played history, and marks almost everthing as unplayed again. I say almost, there's no purticular pattern to it. Some will be marked part played, others entirely unplayed. A very few will actually stay as played. Whichever, it doesn't appear to match their actual status on either the phone or the laptop.

Given that it used to work fine, and that it appears to be getting the play status from some invisible third location, I can only assume this is down to the supposed iCould syncing feature. As it's clearly borked, since the last time it happened, I'd been trying to avoid syncing over a wire until I'd cleared my whole podcast backlog, and knew I could safely delete the whole lot. Then today I needed a little power, so I l plugged the iPhone into my MacBook, and 200 old podcasts reappeared as unlistened.

I'd far rather have wired only syncing that works than the shambles I have at the moment!