Message Heard’s Filed Accounts Show About £1.56 Million in Losses Over Four Years as the Podcast Producer Heads for Liquidation

What Happened at Message Heard?

Staff were made redundant, freelance contracts ended and the owners say the company is entering voluntary liquidation, according to Podnews. Podnews reported that former freelancer Christopher Phin posted that the company “is going into voluntary liquidation,” and that its history podcast Conflicted appears to have stopped publishing in mid-October (Podnews). The company is registered as Message Heard Media Ltd, incorporated on July 31, 2017 as J W A Warren Ltd and renamed in February 2018; its founder Jake Warren holds 75% or more of the shares and voting rights, according to its register of people with significant control (Companies House).

A creditors’ voluntary liquidation starts with shareholders, not a court. GOV.UK says 75% of shareholders by value of shares must agree to a winding-up resolution, which must then be sent to Companies House within 15 days and advertised in The Gazette within 14 days, and an insolvency practitioner appointed as liquidator (GOV.UK). When we checked on November 11, none of those filings had reached the register, which still showed the company as active (Companies House).

What Do the Accounts Say?

Steady losses, funded by new shares and family loans, with the balance sheet in deficit since 2022. Message Heard files as a small company. Only its 2022 accounts include a profit and loss account: revenue of £809,960 and a loss after tax of £421,689 (Companies House). For 2023 to 2025 it filed abridged balance sheets, so the yearly loss has to be worked out from the movement in the profit and loss reserve, which we did below.

Losses peaked in 2024 and roughly halved in 2025, but by then the deficit had grown to £1,773,488.

The gap was covered in two ways. Share premium, the money raised from selling new shares, rose by £453,993 between the end of 2022 and the end of 2025. And the 2025 accounts show £450,950 owed to related parties, in line with the £450,000 of loans from Louise Beaumont and Andrew Warren that Podnews described. At the end of 2025 the company owed £886,825 due within a year and £212,260 due later, about £1.1 million in total, against £114,806 of current assets.

Why Do Our Figures Differ From the Reported Ones?

Because the reported numbers mix two balance-sheet totals that are not yearly losses. Podnews wrote that the company was “losing £303,000 in 2022, £468,000 in 2023, £1.5mn in 2024, and almost £1.8mn in 2025,” and its newsletter put the four-year loss at “more than the equivalent of US $5.3mn” (Podnews; Podnews newsletter). The first two figures are the company’s net liabilities at the end of 2022 (£303,731) and 2023 (£468,046). The last two are its accumulated deficit, the running total of every loss since 2017, at the end of 2024 (£1,510,807) and 2025 (£1,773,488). Added together they count the same losses more than once. The yearly losses we derive total about £1.56 million for 2022 to 2025. That is still a large sum for an eight-person studio, and it does not change the reported facts about unpaid work.

What Can Staff and Freelancers Claim?

Employees have a government backstop; freelancers usually do not. GOV.UK lists what employees of an insolvent company can apply for, with each week capped at £751 for redundancies from April 6, 2026 (GOV.UK).

• Redundancy pay: only after two or more years of continuous employment.
• Unpaid wages, overtime and commission: up to 8 weeks.
• Holiday pay: up to 6 weeks, from the 12 months before the insolvency.
• Statutory notice pay: one week for each year employed.

Freelancers are unsecured creditors. GOV.UK says a creditor should contact the person handling the case, whose details appear on Companies House for a company liquidation; anyone owed more than £1,000 needs to submit a “Proof of Debt” form, and “You’re not guaranteed any payment” (GOV.UK). This is not legal advice. Our recommendation: keep invoices, commissioning emails and delivery records together now. Clients whose shows were produced or hosted by Message Heard should also confirm who controls each feed, using the steps in our guides to protecting a podcast from hijacking and moving a podcast to a new host.

What to Watch Next

The winding-up resolution and the liquidator’s appointment should appear on the company’s Companies House page and in The Gazette within the 15 and 14 days GOV.UK allows.

Sources and Methodology

This explainer is built from Message Heard Media Ltd’s Companies House filings (accounts for 2022 to 2025, officer and control registers), GOV.UK guidance on liquidation and creditor claims, and Podnews’s November 11, 2026 report, all read on November 11, 2026. Yearly losses for 2023 to 2025 and totals are our arithmetic. We did not contact the company or its directors.

1. official Companies House, Filing history for MESSAGE HEARD MEDIA LTD (10891982). Accounts 2022 to 2025, director resignation, share allotments. Read November 11, 2026.
2. official Companies House, Company overview and persons with significant control. Status, incorporation, former name, control. Read November 11, 2026.
3. trade press Podnews, Message Heard goes into voluntary liquidation (November 11, 2026). Redundancies, freelancers, reported loss figures, loans. Read November 11, 2026.
4. regulator GOV.UK, Liquidate your limited company: arrange liquidation with your creditors. Resolution, filing and Gazette deadlines. Read November 11, 2026.
5. regulator GOV.UK, Your rights if your employer is insolvent: what you can get. Caps and limits for employee claims. Read November 11, 2026.
6. regulator GOV.UK, Register as a creditor in a bankruptcy or liquidation. Proof of Debt threshold. Read November 11, 2026.