Message Heard goes into voluntary liquidation

UK podcast production company Message Heard has made its staff redundant and ended the freelance contracts of fourteen people, Podnews has learnt, and gone into voluntary liquidation. We have been told that many are owed money for work they have already delivered.

Conflicted, the company’s history podcast, appears to have ceased publishing in the middle of October. The last posted episode doesn’t appear to be obviously the last in a season; nor has it posted on its X account since. But last week, producer and presenter Thomas Small described “unresolved difficulties over payment for our work”. He’s started a small mailing list for listeners to keep updated.

In the last 24 hours, Christopher Phin, a former freelancer, posted on LinkedIn that the company “is going into voluntary liquidation”, adding that “a group of extraordinarily talented producers, engineers, production coordinators and more, suddenly find themselves without security at the worst time of year.”

At the end of December last year, it had eight employees. A staff member, Alan Leer - promoted in Aug 2025 to Head of Sound and Creative Audio - has posted that the entire team had been made redundant. “I’m really shocked about the situation and how it’s been handled”, he added.

Message Heard is a “small company” according to UK law, and doesn’t release full accounts to Companies House. But, of what we can see, the company hasn’t made money in the last four years: and its finances have been getting worse, losing £303,000 in 2022, £468,000 in 2023, £1.5mn in 2024, and almost £1.8mn in 2025.

Jake Warren is the CEO and Founder of Message Heard, launching it in January 2018. The company, represented globally by CAA, describes itself as a “digital story studio” these days - describing “podcasting with purpose” as the company’s heritage.

The company made shows for Wondery, iHeart and the BBC, and consulted for the London Standard and Al Jazeera. It won a gold award at The Signal Awards just a couple of weeks ago, for a show it made for the British Council.

It’s quite the family affair - the company’s directors include Andrew Warren, Jake Warren and Max Warren. Jake (36) and Max (33) are brothers, 68 year-old Andrew Warren is, we think, their father, and Louise Beamont, aged 56 - who was also a director until a termination notice on Oct 9 - is, we understand, their stepmother. We also note that Louise Beaumont and Andrew Warren have given the company loans of a total of £450,000, both personally and through a company called Vector Associates.

The only director who isn’t an immediate part of the Warren family is Richard Arnold. He had been a director since August 2023, and we understand that Arnold was Chief Financial Officer (though he doesn’t appear on the website’s team page). He is director of one other company - Renaissance Corporate. Companies House notes that this company had a notice for compulsory strike-off in 2025, which, based on timing, appears to be related to a late filing of a confirmation statement. Renaissance Corporate describes its core business as “book-keeping and financial management”.

Message Heard hired four people only three months ago; but we understand that people working for the company were aware of financial problems in September. Also in September, director and COO Max Warren became director of another company, Private Source Ltd. He’s the sole director of that; the company is described as offering management consultancy services.

And, it appears that while the company’s financial problems deepened, its CEO Jake Warren was speaking at audio conferences in Stockholm and Copenhagen - explaining “why Message Heard has evolved beyond being a podcast company and into a digital story studio” - and was building a YouTube series called “Jake Undiscovered”.

It seems that this hasn’t been handled well. Someone who did work for the company told us: “We have all completed work for which we remain unpaid. The way the company ended our engagements was, in my view, unconscionable.”

We’ve approached the company for comment; and would like to wish everyone affected the best of luck for the future.