Wild Tracks, one of Soho’s longest standing audio post houses, has been forced to close due to a lack of work and falling rates.

The Greek Street facility, established in 1987 by owner and managing director Paul Headland, shut its doors on 18 June and has appointed liquidators. All 10 employees will lose their jobs.

Headland told Broadcast it was symptomatic of the state of the market. “All clients have less money and they’re doing less work, but they still want better prices,” he said.

“We quoted one company £5 above the dubbing rates we were charging in 1987 – and they still said it was too expensive.”

Headland had already reduced staff levels through redundancies and natural wastage in an effort to adjust overheads. He had also asked the remaining employees to take a pay cut.

“It’s a tragedy for the staff,” he said. “We tried everything we could to save the company but looking ahead in June the volume of work was appalling. My gut feeling was that July and August were going to be rotten too.”

According to Broadcast’s Post Survey 2009, Wild Tracks turned over £1.4m in 2008 with the majority coming from TV. Its credits include audio post on Skatoony (pictured) series 3 for Cartoon Network and promos for Nickelodeon.

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