Podcasters, I have a couple of questions...

I am working on an interview-based podcast.
The show obviously rises and falls with the quality of the interviews.

How can I make sure the interviews will be of high quality in terms of

What do you do if the interview isn't good enough and you don't want to publish it?

Strategies I have so far:

have a call before agreeing to have them as guests
thoroughly pre-select guests by looking if they have been on other shows already, level of expertise (and how that went)

What else are you doing? And how do you handle interviews that did not go well?

If any of the experienced podcasters here is willing to talk me through some of their processes, that would mean the world to me!

Thanks a lot.
Michaela