1. ) Navigate to Stitcher’s Settings panel and enable the Minimize Cellular Data setting. This will prevent the media player from automatically caching the current and next episodes in the Now Playing playlist during playback. Stitcher version 3.9 monitors the available cellular network bandwidth and automatically disables this caching behavior unless the cellular network is running at 4G or faster data speeds, or the device is connected to an unmetered WiFi network. Slower 3G speeds are more prone to errors resulting in retries that waste previously transmitted data.
2.) Optionally enable the Download Before Playing setting to ensure that only a single connection to the remote audio server is used during playback. The trade-off involves longer wait-times for the episode to download before playback begins, unless the episode has already been download for offline listening. A longer wait-time would also serve as an audible indicator the episode is likely not playing from local storage and thus you may be incurring cellular use/charges.
3.) Enable the WiFi Download Only option in Stitcher’s Offline Settings panel to prevent downloading of content via the cellular network without an explicit override following a pull to refresh action on one of your playlists.
4.) Enable one or more of your playlists for offline listening and download the episodes’ audio content over a WiFi network prior to playback. Although playback of the episode’s audio file will occur from local storage when Stitcher’s Listen button and heard-status dots are green, any active network will be used for bookmarking and advertisements, therefore the only way to completely prevent the use of cellular data is to disable the device’s cellular data transceiver from the device’s Settings panel, for example by enabling Airplane Mode. Toggling Airplane Mode off then back on is also a quick method of resetting both WiFi and cellular data networks to their fastest connection speeds in the event a cellular 4G connection drops to a slower 3G or 2G network protocol, which can decrease reliability and increase costs due to reduced network performance and stability, resulting in frequent communication retries.
5.) To prevent the loss of accumulated audio data during playback, disable the device’s Power Saving Mode or add an optimization exception for Stitcher, as explained in the following FAQ page:
https://stitcher.helpshift.com/a/stitcher-radio/?s=current-known-issues&f=why-does-stitcher-stop-playback-after-the-lock-screen-activates
6.) Optionally enable the Display Network Status option in Stitcher’s Settings panel. This will display the app’s data-consumption mode and current cellular connection type as well as any warnings related to Power Saving Mode or other device settings that may interfere with normal playback in the Offline Mode banner area at the top of the screen. "Minimize Cellular Data Mode" will be displayed when Stitcher is conserving cellular network use, while "Minimize Data Mode" will be displayed when Stitcher is connected via WiFi to a metered network such as a personal cellular hot-spot or other WiFi access point that has been flagged as metered in the device’s Settings panel, Data Usage section, under the Network Restrictions menu on devices running Android OS 6 or later.