{"id":67923,"date":"2025-08-08T15:50:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T15:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/67923\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T15:50:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T15:50:07","slug":"pbr-accuses-dr-phil-of-orchestrating-merit-street-bankruptcy-forming-envoy-media-avoid-paying-creditors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/67923\/","title":{"rendered":"PBR Accuses Dr. Phil of ‘Orchestrating’ Merit Street Bankruptcy, Forming Envoy Media Avoid Paying Creditors"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tProfessional Bull Riders<\/a> wants to know whether Dr. Phil<\/a> led his Merit Street Media<\/a> to file for bankruptcy<\/a> in a \u201cbad faith\u201d move \u2014 while shifting assets into a newly created company, Envoy Media<\/a> Co. \u2014 in order to avoid repaying PBR and other creditors monies owed.<\/p>\n

\n\tPBR filed an emergency motion with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Northern District of Texas seeking to compel production of documents from Merit Street and McGraw\u2019s Peteski Productions to determine whether Merit Street filed the bankruptcy case \u201cin bad faith.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAll evidence presently suggests that Phillip C. McGraw (\u2018Dr. Phil\u2019) orchestrated this Chapter 11 Case to avoid menacing litigation against PBR and jumpstart Envoy Media Co. (\u2018Envoy\u2019), a brand-new media venture he founded the day before Debtor filed this case, with the Debtor\u2019s remaining assets free and clear of any legacy encumbrances and obligations he made on the Debtor\u2019s behalf,\u201d PBR said in the Aug. 6 filing.<\/p>\n

\n\tMcGraw\u2019s Merit Street filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection July 2<\/a> and sued former partner Trinity Broadcasting Network. The complaint alleges that TBN, the Christian broadcasting company that was Merit Street\u2019s distribution partner, reneged on its obligations and instead \u201cabused its position as the controlling shareholder.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPBR inked a content agreement with Merit Street<\/a> last year but pulled the programming in November 2024, alleging Merit Street failed to pay PBR contractually guaranteed rights fees. PBR is now part of TKO Group<\/a>, parent company of WWE and UFC, after Endeavor (TKO\u2019s majority owner) swapped PBR and other assets into TKO last fall.<\/p>\n

\n\tPBR, Merit Street\u2019s largest creditor with a $181 million debt claim against McGraw\u2019s company<\/a>, argued that converting the Merit Street case to Chapter 7 bankruptcy \u2014 in which a company\u2019s assets are liquidated to repay creditors \u2014 \u201cis in the creditors\u2019 best interests and has formally requested that relief from this Court.\u201d Under the Chapter 11 reorg petition, McGraw\u2019s Peteski Productions is the designated debtor-in-possession lender.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPeteski and Dr. Phil cannot untangle themselves from this case and the discovery PBR seeks. They are inextricably intertwined, participated in key conduct that led to the Debtor\u2019s insolvency, and ultimately decided to file for bankruptcy,\u201d PBR said in the filing.<\/p>\n

\n\tMcGraw on July 14 announced a new company: Envoy Media Co., \u201cfocused on news, entertainment and citizen journalism,\u201d which he said will provide live news and original programming with an emphasis on user-generated content on a national scale. \u201cAs always, my commitment and that of the Envoy network team is to focus on real people, facing real challenges, seeking real solutions,\u201d Dr. Phil said in a statement announcing the company\u2019s formation<\/a>. PBR alleges that McGraw formed Envoy Media Co. on July 1, immediately prior to Merit Street\u2019s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.<\/p>\n

\n\tEntertainment law firm Manatt, with a team led by Manatt Entertainment group partner Christopher Chatham, handled the strategy and negotiations for Dr. Phil\u2019s Envoy Media Co., the firm said<\/a> in a July 16 statement.<\/p>\n

\n\tAmong the materials PBR seeks are \u201call documents and communications\u201d referenced by TBN\u2019s lawyers in a court hearing including \u201cthe emails where Dr. Phil referenced his \u2018eleventh-hour poker strategy\u2019 and \u2018gangster move\u2019 to take over Merit Street Media.\u201d According to PBR\u2019s motion to compel, to date Merit Street has produced just over 1,600 pages of documents while Peteski Productions has produced none. PBR\u2019s 116-page filing is available at this link<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tPBR said documentation it has requested could reveal that Merit Street engaged in \u201cdepleting, diverting, siphoning, or fraudulently transferring assets, overspending, abandoning its business, leaving no assets to protect, preserve, or reorganize, breaches of fiduciary duties on behalf of its director(s) or shareholder(s), and\/or filing the bankruptcy without the requisite corporate authority.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAttorneys for Merit Media did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe bankruptcy court has scheduled an Aug. 19 hearing in the matter to determine whether to convert the case to Chapter 7 as PBR requests, dismiss it as requested by TBN (Merit Street\u2019s former majority shareholder) or approve debtor-in-possession financing as Merit Street requests.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Thursday (Aug. 7), lawyers for Merit Street filed an opposition to PBR\u2019s motion to expedite the hearing on PBR\u2019s emergency motion to compel production of documents from Merit Street. The filing said PBR\u2019s motion to compel \u201cis premature because PBR filed it without meeting and conferring with Merit Street. Indeed, PBR\u2019s motion to compel seeks numerous documents that Merit Street had already produced before PBR filed its motion \u2014 something Merit Street could have explained if PBR had properly met and conferred with Merit Street.\u201d According to Merit Street, the parties \u201ccontinue to meet and confer regarding PBR\u2019s document requests\u201d and \u201cno hearing should occur until that process has an opportunity to run its course.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDr. Phil rose to fame as a guest on Oprah Winfrey\u2019s talk show before launching his own daytime show with the backing of Winfrey\u2019s Harpo Productions. He officially launched Merit Street Media in April 2024<\/a> with TBN as its key distribution partner. In August 2024, Merit Street laid off 38 employees, representing more than one-third of its staff, and in June 2025 had placed an additional 40 staffers on \u201csummer hiatus,\u201d according to a report by WFAA<\/a>, an ABC affiliate in the Dallas-Forth Worth metro area.<\/p>\n

\n\tPBR\u2019s filing was reported earlier by Debtwire<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tPictured above: Dr. Phil speaks at a campaign rally for Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 27, 2024 in New York City<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Professional Bull Riders wants to know whether Dr. Phil led his Merit Street Media to file for bankruptcy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67924,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[9666,88,49494,9952,49495,92],"class_list":["post-67923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-dr-phil","tag-entertainment","tag-envoy-media","tag-merit-street-media","tag-professional-bull-riders","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}