{"id":101327,"date":"2025-08-28T04:40:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-28T04:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/101327\/"},"modified":"2025-08-28T04:40:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T04:40:07","slug":"dr-phil-faces-sanctions-in-legal-battle-with-christian-tv-network-over-500m-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/101327\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Phil Faces Sanctions In Legal Battle With Christian TV Network Over $500M Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tTrinity Broadcasting<\/a> has put its cards on the pulpit and the clock is ticking on whether Dr. Phil<\/a> will be facing a judge today in Dallas, possible sanctions, or be on the other side of asking questions in a deposition very soon in his legal Holy War with the Christian TV giant.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe are again confronted with the same discovery failures the Court has already fully addressed,\u201d declared TBN late yesterday in an emergency relief filing in the ongoing dispute over a $500 million production and distribution deal gone bad and efforts by Phil McGraw<\/a>\u2018s Peteski Productions and Merit Street Media to stiff creditors by taking the Chapter 11 route. <\/p>\n

\n\tA couple years after exiting CBS<\/a> after over two decades and hooking up with Trinity Broadcasting in the big bucks agreement that took flight in April 2024, Dr. Phil sued the faith-based outlet for breach of contract and saw his floundering MSM file for bankruptcy.<\/a> Last week, TBN, who has the support of the TKO Group Holdings<\/a>\u2013 (a.k.a. Ari Emanuel<\/a>\u2018s shop) owned Professional Bull Riders, countersued Donald Trump pal McGraw and Peteski \u201cfor their reprehensible conduct\u201d of lies,<\/a> \u201ca false sense of urgency,\u201d and strong arming for millions but delivering little in return. On August 19, a spokesperson for the ICE ride- along Dr. Phil claimed \u201cTBN\u2019s latest lawsuit is riddled with provable lies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTuesday, TBN, again backed up on the docket by PBR, sought a hearing today at 5 pm CT on the emergency relief motion and financial sanctions against Dr. Phil and his company for not handing over the documents they were ordered to already by the courts.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhether it happens or not at this point, Dr. Phil is currently set to sit down for a likely grueling seven-hour-long deposition on Thursday. A present schedule that could in TBN\u2019s POV leave them woefully unprepared on August 28 due to Dr, Phil\u2019s \u201cdiscovery gamesmanship,\u201d and lacking the information they believe they need for a full-on questioning of the Oprah<\/a>-discovered good doctor.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBy its own admission in a meet-and-confer between counsel on August 26, 2025, Peteski still has not produced all of Phillip C. McGraw\u2019s emails and text messages (despite his deposition being scheduled to begin in less than 48 hours from the time of such conference), nor has it produced all of the documents concerning Envoy,\u201d the Folley & Lardner-represented TBN said in its 13-page filing last night. <\/a>\u201cPeteski\u2019s same delay tactics persist. The pattern is so striking that it is more than mere d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu; it is a deliberate rerun, scripted by parties who have decided that the Court\u2019s orders are optional guidance rather than binding directives.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOr as PBR\u2019s legal team of Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff and Dallas-based Wick Phillips Gould & Martin put in its own filing of August 26 backing up TBN:<\/a> \u201cThe documents produced to date demonstrate that this bankruptcy was conceived as a scheme to divert the Debtor\u2019s employees and intellectual property to Envoy, a competing business Dr. Phil founded the day before this case was filed, and leave the Debtor\u2019s business as a shell with nothing more than a repeated loop of re-runs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPBR yanked its programming off Merit Street Media late last year as the venture looked progressively less appealing. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt appears that Mr. McGraw is exerting his control over Peteski and strategically limiting his production in the hope that Trinity and PBR will cancel or postpone his deposition,\u201d TBN added of the partnership they had such high flyin\u2019 hopes for just a few and very expensive months ago.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMr. McGraw has delayed and restricted production of key documents directly relevant to his testimony, making it impossible to question him fully unless the deposition is moved,\u201d TBN went on to say. They are seeking lawyers\u2019 fees, a \u201cbrief adjournment\u201d of the upcoming September 2 hearing and Dr. Phil\u2019s depo moved if need be, but only if absolutely neccesary and if the full document handover does not occur ASAP. \u201cThis is not the first time Mr. McGraw has gone to extraordinary lengths to avoid sitting for a deposition. Indeed, he caused the Debtor to file for bankruptcy immediately after the arbitrator in the PBR arbitration compelled his deposition.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMr. McGraw does not want to sit for a deposition at all. But he should not be rewarded for his discovery tactics by a postponement or cancellation of his deposition.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tReps for the UTA-signed Dr. Phil did not respond to Deadline\u2019s request over the latest filings and today\u2019s deadline (pun slightly intended). With just over 30 minutes until the requested hearing time in the Lone Star state, there is no indication of a hearing or much of anything on the dockets for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court Northern District of Texas.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Tuesday, TBN\u2019s lawyers said \u201cThe time for patience has passed,\u201d but right now it feels a lot like that fave expression of Dr. Phil\u2019s of \u201cthat dog don\u2019t hunt for me\u201d is the proper phrase here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trinity Broadcasting has put its cards on the pulpit and the clock is ticking on whether Dr. Phil…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":101328,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[73664,64,63,3871,73665,134,43682,73666,49882,73667,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-101327","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-ari-emanuel","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-cbs","12":"tag-dr-phil","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-oprah","15":"tag-phil-mcgraw","16":"tag-tko-group-holdings","17":"tag-trinity-broadcasting","18":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}