{"id":250304,"date":"2025-09-24T00:59:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T00:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/250304\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T00:59:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T00:59:11","slug":"dr-phil-testifies-in-500m-deal-dispute-with-christian-tv-giant-trinity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/250304\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Phil Testifies In $500M Deal Dispute With Christian TV Giant Trinity"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\u201cIs there a question?\u201d a weary Dr. Phil<\/a> McGraw asked a lawyer for Trinity Broadcasting<\/a> Network. McGraw was on the witness stand today in the battle over a $500 million distribution deal between the TV shrink and the Christian TV network.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNo question,\u201d Dr. Phil said under his breath, answering his own query in a dispute<\/a> that has become its own level of legal Hell.<\/p>\n

\n\tAmidst gentle reprimands from the judge over how \u201cYes\u201d or \u201cNo\u201d questions work, bickering attorneys, a \u201ctrial mantra,\u201d verbal salvos and short fuses, a frequently irritated McGraw Tuesday testified in federal court in Texas on the potential Chapter 11<\/a> and various lawsuits surrounding his much hyped and now-diminished Merit Street Media<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt did not go smoothly, to put it mildly. Or, as Dr. Phil suggested at one point, \u201cif we are going to open that can, let\u2019s eat the whole thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re here because they ignored the fact that the time that it takes for a startup network to get to a point of fruition, and turnaround is four to five years, and they were explained this from the jump,\u201d a bellicose McGraw told Judge Scott W. Everet\u2019s courtroom. <\/p>\n

\n\tMcGraw went on to describe how the legal squirmish started and the \u201ctoxic\u201d relationship \u2014 as previously described,<\/a> between TBN (the \u201cthey\u201d here) and MSM \u2014 that quickly developed last year with the launch of the latter. \u201cWe discussed it on numerous occasions, and they just didn\u2019t stay the course long enough for it to get to that point. This was a four-to-five year journey, and if they had just stayed in long enough, I think this would have been the best investment they had ever made.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOver and over Tuesday, the 75-year-old Dr. Phil shifted the vast bulk of the blame for the TBN\/MSM deal crashing in a matter of months on the Christian broadcaster. \u201cI had as much control as I could have,\u201d he insisted to the court of his role in the fate of the digital endeavor.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was so much fun,\u201d the onetime CBS talk show host muttered, with obvious sarcasm, of all the time he spent with attorneys and accountants in the past year as various schemes were discussed on how to dismantle the TBN deal. A deal that Dr. Phil acknowledges saw TBN make \u201csignificant capital contributions\u201d along the way.<\/p>\n

\n\tHaving recently launched a new company Envoy out of the remains of MSM, Peteski Productions owner McGraw moved in July to put MSM in bankruptcy\u00a0and suing TBN for breach of contract<\/a>. With a summary judgement hearing looming for later this year, the Matthew Crouch run faith-based company countersued in August,<\/a> accusing Dr. Phil of \u201creprehensible conduct,\u201d trying to play them for millions and tying to pull a fast one to get out of the deal.<\/p>\n

\n\tEarlier this week, Crouch took to the stand and told the court that Dr. Phil and Merit Street Media were a bust for TBN and never made them any serious money. With notions of a settlement <\/a>once floated, and debtor loan plans of around $10 million in the mix to make sure lawyers are paid, the lawsuits seemed to have turned into a very un-Christian grudge match.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe hearing is in recess right now, with lawyers for the TKO Group Holdings<\/a>-owned Professional Bull Riders set to question the witness for \u201can hour, maybe more\u201d this afternoon. As he was during the TBN questioning, Peteski (and long time Oprah<\/a>) lawyer Charles Babcock is in court and raising objections for his client.<\/p>\n

\n\tEarlier Tuesday, Dr. Phil walked slowly out of the witness box after the Judge broke for lunch. Having had knee surgery a while back, the 6\u2032 3\u2033 McGraw appeared to have an issue with his chair being too low. Several members of his team came over to help, trying to adjust the rest and eventually rolling a new chair over for the rest of the day\u2019s testimony \u2014 which seemed to at least go fine on that level.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIs there a question?\u201d a weary Dr. Phil McGraw asked a lawyer for Trinity Broadcasting Network. McGraw was…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":250305,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[27739,26973,171,27861,18327,27862,76618,27863,173,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-250304","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-bankruptcy","9":"tag-dr-phil","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-merit-street-media","12":"tag-oprah","13":"tag-phil-mcgraw","14":"tag-tko-group-holdings","15":"tag-trinity-broadcasting","16":"tag-tv","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115256568344074131","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250304","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=250304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}