{"id":49865,"date":"2025-07-08T22:54:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T22:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/49865\/"},"modified":"2025-07-08T22:54:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T22:54:12","slug":"behind-dr-phils-media-flameout-merit-street-bankruptcy-filing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/49865\/","title":{"rendered":"Behind Dr. Phil’s Media Flameout, Merit Street Bankruptcy Filing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tPhil McGraw<\/a>\u2018s Merit Street Media is in bankruptcy court<\/a> and is simultaneously suing its distribution partner, Trinity Broadcasting, for breach of contract that the company says led to the chapter 11 filing. But signs that the 15-month-old network was struggling were there well before Merit Street began bankruptcy proceedings on July 2.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn its lawsuit, Merit Street says Trinity Broadcasting \u2014\u00a0known for its Christian programming, and with a distribution network that reaches about 65 million homes in the U.S. \u2014\u00a0forced its network, Merit TV, into expensive third-party distribution deals rather than using Trinity\u2019s own network of local stations and provided \u201cshoddy production services\u201d for Merit TV\u2019s programs, among other issues. McGraw\u2019s own Peteski Productions gave Merit Street a bridge loan to cover some ongoing operations, but Merit Street\u2019s precarious finances made securing outside infusions of capital impossible, leading to the bankruptcy filing.<\/p>\n

\n\tSeveral attempts to reach Trinity Broadcasting for comment were unsuccessful.<\/p>\n

\n\tPrior to the bankruptcy filing, however, there were a number of indicators that Merit TV was undergoing a rocky start to its life \u2014 even putting aside the questionable notion of launching a linear TV venture in a time when streaming is the default option for the largest share of viewers. And even the linear TV part of Merit Street\u2019s offering (which also includes a FAST channel and mobile app) wasn\u2019t fully locked down: The channel is available over the air (though often on digital subchannels) in most major markets and is available on some \u2014\u00a0but hardly all \u2014\u00a0cable and satellite providers. Comcast\u2019s Xfinity service, YouTube TV and Hulu + Live TV don\u2019t carry it.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn the programming front, McGraw\u2019s Dr. Phil Primetime is the flagship show for Merit TV, but it also featured a morning and evening newscast and a handful of original shows, including ones hosted by Nancy Grace and former Bachelor host Chris Harrison. Merit Street also announced a deal with the Professional Bull Riders tour to carry its events, which kicked off in July 2024. By October, however, PBR had pulled its programming from Merit TV, saying the network had yet to pay rights fees. The two sides are in arbitration over the dispute. (PBR moved on to sign a rights deal with Fox Nation<\/a>, the Fox News streaming platform.)<\/p>\n

\n\tMore recently, the evening newscast was scrapped in favor of a morning show and live hourly updates during other parts of the day. Following the bankruptcy filing, all shows \u2014\u00a0including Dr. Phil Primetime \u2014\u00a0have stopped production, leaving Merit TV as something of a zombie channel. Reruns of McGraw\u2019s various programs and a few infomercials fill the day. The last available morning newscast on the Merit TV app is from July 1.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn the digital side, Merit TV\u2019s YouTube channel has fewer than 90,000 subscribers, and while a handful of videos there have tallied a million or more views (based on YouTube\u2019s 30-second qualifier), the biggest one from the last three months has just 40,000.<\/p>\n

\n\tMerit TV also made headlines \u2014\u00a0not particularly positive ones \u2014\u00a0for McGraw\u2019s embedding with ICE agents on raids in the early days of Donald Trump\u2019s second presidential administration. In the segments aired on Merit TV, \u201cborder czar\u201d Tom Homan states that that the raids showcased problems with so-called sanctuary cities, which McGraw (and Merit\u2019s newscasters) seemingly take at face value. McGraw also interviewed Trump several times during the 2024 campaign.<\/p>\n

\n\tMerit TV never reached a wide audience \u2014 in primetime, it averaged a paltry 27,000 viewers in 2024, ranking 130th among broadcast and cable outlets. The company touted its January performance (albeit without any detailed numbers), noting that Merit TV moved up to 65th place for the month. That would have meant an average audience in the low six figures, based on 2024 data, and was also the peak for Merit TV: By the second quarter of 2025, its audience dipped to just 17,000 primetime viewers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Phil McGraw\u2018s Merit Street Media is in bankruptcy court and is simultaneously suing its distribution partner, Trinity Broadcasting,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":49866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[171,27862,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-49865","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-phil-mcgraw","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114820079276362366","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49865","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=49865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}