{"id":160221,"date":"2025-08-20T04:47:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T04:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/160221\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T04:47:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T04:47:09","slug":"dr-phil-countersued-by-trinity-broadcasting-accused-of-bad-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/160221\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Phil Countersued By Trinity Broadcasting; Accused Of Bad Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIn a case of careful what you pray for, Phil McGraw<\/a> is having a not-so-great week.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Monday, the man Oprah<\/a> introduced us to years ago as Dr. Phil<\/a> began to try to halt the month old Chapter 11 proceedings of his short-lived Merit Street Media<\/a> after finding the cost of going bankrupt too expensive, literally. Today, as a federal judge tried to come up with a solution for the financial potholes, Dr. Phil and his Peteski Productions found themselves countersued by Trinity Broadcasting<\/a> for a $500 million production and distribution deal that went to Hell in a handbasket.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe response to TBN legitimately and lawfully defending itself from Peteski and McGraw\u2019s bad-faith attacks is to cry foul because they do not like the true facts that they themselves now regretfully put at issue before this Court, revealing McGraw\u2019s true illicit intent and wrongful conduct which he self-described as a \u2018gangster move\u2019 and as \u201911th-hour poker,’\u201d states the action Tuesday<\/a> by the faith-based TV network in federal court in Texas.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTBN now asserts its affirmative claims against Peteski and McGraw related to the years-long fraudulent scheme that they developed and executed to fleece TBN, a not-for-profit corporation, to enrich McGraw, his associates and affiliates,\u201d Fort Worth-set TSN and their Foley & Lardner LLP attorneys added. \u201cTBN is confident that the truth will set it free, and result in Peteski and McGraw being held accountable for their reprehensible conduct.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTo put it simply, TBN claims that Donald Trump\u2019s pal and ICE adjacent Dr. Phil created \u201ca false sense of urgency\u2019 and lied to them about viewership, ad revenue, library ownership, and production costs in early 2023 to secure a fast, lucrative agreement. \u201cAmong other things, McGraw falsely represented to TBN that CBS<\/a> would pay him $75 million per year to renew his contract and TBN must (1) immediately sign some form of binding agreement with Peteski and (2) immediately pay him $20 million as a gesture of good faith to show TBN\u2019s ability to pay and commitment to the deal,\u201d the Christian company\u2019s lawyers claim. \u201cAnything less, McGraw claimed, would be a \u2018deal killer.\u2019 TBN relied on McGraw\u2019s false assurances and proceeded with the requested urgency.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNeedless to say, the grand plans for cost-cutting by relocating the one-time clinical psychologist\u2019s show and team to the Lone Star state, the millions invested for multi-platform and streaming success didn\u2019t quite pan out for the 52-year-old TBN and Dr. Phil.<\/p>\n

\n\tThey launched the joint venture in April 2024 and barely kept it going for a year. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis fresh voice on the national stage is inexorably going dark, going off the air because TBN has refused to honor its commitment to transfer its must-carry rights and thereby provide national distribution for the network,\u201d Merit Street cautioned in its own breach of contract suit of early July. \u201cMerit Street has nowhere to send its broadcast signal and nowhere to air its programming no matter how great it may be.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tReps for UTA<\/a>-signed Dr. Phil, who had a 21-year run on CBS that ended in 2023, did not respond to Deadline\u2019s request for comment on what went down in court dockets on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn their countersuit, TBN wants the judicial system to give them a mix of damages, injunctions, and stock amendment deal enforcement \u2013 because the Lord giveth, and the Lord certainly taketh away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a case of careful what you pray for, Phil McGraw is having a not-so-great week. On Monday,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":160222,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[15328,26973,171,27861,18327,27862,27863,173,67,132,68,10080],"class_list":{"0":"post-160221","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-cbs","9":"tag-dr-phil","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-merit-street-media","12":"tag-oprah","13":"tag-phil-mcgraw","14":"tag-trinity-broadcasting","15":"tag-tv","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-uta"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115059284030813771","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}