{"id":51029,"date":"2025-07-09T09:25:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T09:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/51029\/"},"modified":"2025-07-09T09:25:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T09:25:11","slug":"dr-phils-merit-street-media-files-for-bankruptcy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/51029\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Phil&#8217;s Merit Street Media files for bankruptcy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\tDr. Phil\u2019s McGraw\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.merittv.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Merit Street Media<\/a> has filed for bankruptcy after less than two years of operation in Fort Worth.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What happened?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In a court document filed July 2 in Dallas County, the Fort Worth-based company filed for <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Merit-Street-v-TBN-TCT.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bankruptcy<\/a> and is suing <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tbn.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Trinity Broadcast Network<\/a>, alleging a breach of contract. The partnership allowed Merit Street Media to broadcast original and acquired programming for its viewers, according to a previous <a href=\"https:\/\/communityimpact.com\/dallas-fort-worth\/keller-roanoke-northeast-fort-worth\/business\/2024\/04\/04\/dr-phil-launches-broadcasting-network-from-new-north-fort-worth-studios-april-2\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">report<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Shows featured in its initial lineup include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;Morning on Merit Street&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Crime Stories with Nancy Grace&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;The News on Merit Street&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Dr. Phil Primetime&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Centuries Collide&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;The Scott Rasmussen Show&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cThese failures by TBN were neither unintended nor inadvertent. They were a conscious, intentional pattern of choices made with full awareness that the consequence of which was to sabotage and seal the fate of a new but already nationally acclaimed network,\u201d the lawsuit states.<\/p>\n<p>According to the lawsuit, Trinity \u201cimproperly and unilaterally burdened Merit Street with unsustainable debt\u201d of more than $100 million. Peteski Productions, Inc., a company majority owned by McGraw, provided programming but was not compensated for it, according to documentation. Under the agreement, McGraw would produce 160 new 90-minute episodes of Dr. Phil, which previously ran on CBS.<\/p>\n<p>During the 2024 PBR World Finals in Arlington, Dr. Phil and PBR announced a <a href=\"https:\/\/communityimpact.com\/dallas-fort-worth\/grapevine-colleyville-southlake\/arts-entertainment\/2024\/05\/20\/dr-phils-merit-street-media-to-broadcast-pbr-events-starting-in-july\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">contract<\/a> that Merit Street Media would be the official home of bull riding. A Nov. 12, 2024, post on PBR\u2019s Facebook page stated the company and Merit Street Media parted ways due to a breach of contract for Merit Street Media failing to pay right fees owed.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;&gt;<\/p>\n<p>According to previous reporting, Merit Street Media launched April 2, 2024, with a national reach of more than 80 million homes. As of July 8, Merit Street Media\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merittv.com\/?hsCtaAttrib=162947896101\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">webpage<\/a> is still operational.<\/p>\n<p>Trinity Broadcasting Network is a Fort Worth-based company that started in Los Angeles in 1973, according to its website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dr. Phil\u2019s McGraw\u2019s Merit Street Media has filed for bankruptcy after less than two years of operation in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":51030,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,26973,7371,7372,27861,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-51029","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-dr-phil","10":"tag-fort-worth","11":"tag-fortworth","12":"tag-merit-street-media","13":"tag-texas","14":"tag-tx","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114822560051429432","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51029","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=51029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}