Our history

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From little acorns…

1998

Our story begins in a tiny rented office in northwest England, with the goal of helping British businesses to sound as good as they look. We’re focused on telephone hold messaging, which is reflected in our name: Please Hold UK.

Spinning around

2002

We’re helping 1,100 clients, and one of our music tracks – deliberately created to sound like a hit from popstar Kylie Minogue – sparks national media coverage.

Growing up

2008

Our client base has grown to 5,500 clients, including established brands like Crowne Plaza Hotels. In recognition of the potential to help our clients with audio beyond the telephone (and beyond the UK), our name becomes PH Media Group.

Calling out around the world

2012

By now we’re helping over 10,000 clients across the UK, Ireland and continental Europe. Setting our sights on the US and Canada, we open an office in New York City and launch PHMG.com; the new, shortened name begins to stick.

PHMG Foundation

2013

We establish our own charity, with the aim of supporting organisations worldwide to relieve poverty, distress, sickness and hunger.

In the years since, we’ve supported over 70 organisations and raised more than £690,000.

Chicago-a-go-go

2016

We officially rebrand as PHMG and relocate our North American headquarters from New York City to Chicago, Illinois.

Two members of our Music department, Alice Salmon and Lucy Drennan, are awarded a patent for their invention of the process we follow when developing unique music tracks.

quality knows quality

2017

We begin our relationship with triple Grammy Award-winning producer Jacquire King, the expert ear behind tracks from Kings of Leon, James Bay, Modest Mouse and others. We start targeting the rest of the English-speaking world, beginning with Australia.

Across the universe (well… the Pennines)

2021

We open a second UK office in Leeds, Yorkshire’s largest city, and are now helping over 36,000 clients in over 50 countries.

Jacquire King becomes our Executive Director of Production and helps to develop a new, patented production process.

PHMG is reborn

2022

Our business has grown to over 600 professionals in four countries. We undertake a clean-sheet rebrand of our business as we prepare for a digital future, and open our second US base, in Phoenix, Arizona.

Our audio productions generate more sales at our sites than salespeople do.

Ian Wright

Operations Director

Lockwell Electrical

Why PHMG

Why work with PHMG?

Careers at PHMG

Careers at PHMG

Our history

Our history