100 words podcast

I discovered the 100-word stories podcast through Grammar Girl. It's a neat idea: given a theme, write and submit a 100-word short story. The winner gets fame and glory and the chance to choose next week's theme. So here's a question: Why are the individual episodes of a podcast whose tagline is "Keep it Brief" so infuriatingly padded with meowing cats, a rambling host, intro music, and closing music. Given about 45 seconds of actually relevant information (theme, details, etc.), the host manages to create a two and a half minute episode.