A new denoiser removes noise from everything

• A new denoiser tool has been launched - but one with a difference. Tape It’s Denoiser, which is free on the web, works with music - single tracks, full songs, or field recordings. We link to a video demo from the company’s press release.

• Trailergram is a new podcast promotional tool, which launched yesterday. The tool promotes podcast trailers using ads on high-quality websites with contextually relevant articles, exposing shows to millions of potential listeners.

• YouTube will be sharing its RSS ingest tools in a closed information session to podcast hosts today.

  • There have been two sets of research into consumer attitudes into podcasts on YouTube: Amplifi Media and Coleman Insights presented The New Rules of Podcasting on YouTube at Podcast Movement, and will be guests on the Podnews Weekly Review tomorrow to talk through the study; and Tom Webster has also written about the benefit of YouTube as a place to promote a podcast.
  • One issue for some podcasters is the requirement for shows on YouTube to be ad-free (scroll down to “Best Practices”). Host-read sponsorships are OK, but injection of programmatic ads, or 30-second spots, are not. We understand that means some podcast hosts will have to build a workaround to support this policy, by not supplying ads to episodes requested by YouTube’s RSS ingestion tool.

• Podscribe has added a new bird’s eye view of podcast ads, called Ad Placement Inspect - easily showing where ads are placed in shows.

• The Podcast Hall of Fame’s Rob Greenlee has a new show, called Podcast Tips with Rob Greenlee - it’s live today, 7pm EST/4pm PST, on StreamYard.

• If your listeners have Apple CarPlay or Android Auto in their car, they listen to podcasts almost twice as long as those who don’t. This new data is posted by Edison Research, showing that CarPlay or Android Auto reduces the amount of radio listening by almost a third.

• First look: AdLarge has added Headspace Studios to its sales portfolio.

• What Now? with Trevor Noah is set to launch on November 9, says Spotify. (It will be available wherever you get your podcasts).

• Will Page, the former Chief Economist at Spotify, writes about how Spotify’s audiobooks service works, and how it pays its authors.

• Felicia Day will take the stage at On Air LA Annex for a special audio showcase of the new Audible Original Third Eye. Brit Marling has also been confirmed as a guest of Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso; and a live taping of Let’s Make A Horror has also been announced. The event is Nov 1-4.

• Apple employees apparently get vacation time: the company warns that new shows, channels or subscription submissions between Nov 18 - Nov 26, and Dec 22 - Jan 2 might be delayed. Don’t worry, though: uploads of new episodes will continue going through just fine.

  • Podnews will publish as usual over the holiday period: however, please get submissions to us early too!

• And you may ask yourself: “How do I work this?” According to Spotify’s Dave Byrne in a HotPod interview, one brand’s ad keyword list was so out of date it still had “Janet Jackson” on its negative keywords list after her “wardrobe malfunction” at the Super Bowl in 2004. Poor keywords for advertising? Same as it ever was; Spotify instead uses other types of brand safety tools.

• Remote recording tool Zencastr is closing its free plan. Earlier this year, the company offered a free 2-hour plan, which has gone away . The company has added a new Thought Leader plan for $91/month, in addition to its $18/month and $45/month offerings. It has also launched a business plan for $275 featuring automated video clipping.

• Podsee is an AI tool for podcasts that gives you an “AI transcription”. We are here on the service; it doesn’t appear to use the transcripts we already produce in our RSS feed though.

• Evergreen Podcasts announced a partnership with Japanese media company Nippon Broadcasting Systems. The Japanese broadcaster sees more than 12mn downloads per month.

• A podcaster posts details of their podcast being removed from Spreaker for spam.

Tips and tricks - with Spotify for Podcasters

Only Spotify lets you create Q&A and polls on every episode to engage fans where they’re already listening, helping you continue making content they’ll love. You can also use these tools to drive even more engagement: share questions and responses across social, ask for feedback on your content, and get suggestions for new topics or guests. And all that engagement really adds up. On average, listeners who interact with a show through a Q&A consume twice as many hours per month. Discover more tools to help you turn your listeners into fans — no matter where your show is hosted.

• In Variety, Jay Shetty “discussed the strengths of podcasting and how creators can produce personalized content with widespread appeal”

• Now that Zencastr has closed its free plan, you might be looking for some alternatives. This article is by Podcastle, who naturally make themselves #1, but it does mention some others. If all you want is good quality remote audio, the Podnews Weekly Review uses Cleanfeed, which has a free tier.

Podcast News

Spencer Semonson hosts the Oxford Road podcast Media Roundtable this week, with Neal Lucey, Julia Palermo, Stew Redwine and our Editor. The team discuss YouTube’s RSS ingest rollout, and the requirement to have no ads in podcasts over there.

Congratulations to audio newspaper for a visual world The Bugle for sixteen years of podcasting this week. The satirical look at the week’s news is hosted by Andy Zaltzman and produced by Chris Skinner, and apart from the pun runs is of excellent quality - as it should be after sixteen years. You can tell it’s an old podcast because the website still links to Stitcher.

The Wedding Scammer is new from The Ringer, and is the Spotify-owned company’s first ever true crime podcast. Justin Sayles tracks a mysterious figure who once wronged him. A man with a lot of aliases, a lot of failed businesses, and a trail of victims. Justin follows him through a sham media company, a series of ruined weddings, and beyond, trying to find answers.

Burden of Guilt is new this week from iHeartPodcasts and Glass Entertainment Group. It’s the story of a childhood accident that has more to meet the eye. One of the most bizarre and disturbing cases in American history is hosted by six-time Emmy award journalist and executive producer Nancy Glass.

Erased: The Murder of Elma Sands looks at the very first murder trial in America - reimagined in modern language, based on historical court records. And, the place where the body was disposed of still exists - a well, in the basement of a clothing store. It’s from Lava for Good and iHeartPodcasts.

Gone South returned in a new season this week, telling the story of a manhunt for a serial killer that would lead to a shocking standoff with a man once tasked with protecting the town. It’s from Audacy Studios.

13 Days of Halloween releases season four, in binaural sound, today. The audio fiction show stars Natalie Morales, and follows a young woman’s attempts to reach freedom after being falsely imprisoned. It’s from iHeartMedia, Blumhouse Television and Aaron Mahnke’s Grim & Mild.

Meghan Markle isn’t the only member of the UK Royal Family doing podcasts. Floodlight is hosted by HRH Princess Eugenie and Julia de Boinville; and it returns for a new season today, Anti-Slavery Day. The first episode is out today, with former UK Prime Minister Theresa May. It’s from Stak and The Anti-Slavery Collective.