“Is there a question?” a weary Dr. Phil McGraw asked a lawyer for Trinity Broadcasting 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.
“No question,” Dr. Phil said under his breath, answering his own query in a dispute that has become its own level of legal Hell.
Amidst gentle reprimands from the judge over how Yes or No questions work, bickering attorneys, a “trial mantra,” verbal salvos and short fuses, a frequently irritated Phil McGraw Tuesday testified in federal court in Texas on the potential Chapter 11 and various lawsuits surrounding his much hyped and now diminished Merit Street Media.
It did not go well, to put it mildly. Or, as Dr. Phil put it at one point, “if we are going to open that can, let’s eat the whole thing.”
“We’re 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,” a bellicose McGraw told Judge Scott W. Everet’s courtroom how the legal squirmish started and the “toxic” relationship, as previous described, between TBN (the “they” here) and MSM that quickly developed last year with the launch of the latter. “We discussed it on numerous occasions, and they just didn’t 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.”
Over and over Tuesday, the 75-year-old Dr. Phil put the vast bulk of the blame for the TBN/MSM deal crashing in a matter of months. “I had as much control as I could have,” he insisted to the court of his role in the fate of the digital endeavor.
“It was so much fun,” the once striding CBS talk show host muttered with obvious sarcasm, of all the time he has spent with attorney 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 “significant capital contributions” along the way.
Having recently launched a new company Envoy out of the remains of MSM, Peteski Productions owner McGraw moved in July to put MSN in bankruptcy and suing TBN for breach of contract. In August, as a summary judgement hearing looms for later this year, the Matthew Crouch run faith-based company countersued, accusing Dr. Phil of “reprehensible conduct,” trying to play them for millions, and tying to play a fast one to get out of the deal.
Earlier 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 once floated, and debtor loan plans of around $10 million in the mix to make sure lawyers are paid, the suits have turned into a very unChristian grudge match overall.
The hearing is in recess right now, with lawyers for the TKO Group Holdings-owned Professional Bull Riders set to question the witness for “an hour, maybe more” this afternoon. As he was during the TBN questioning, Peteski (and long time Oprah) lawyer Charles Babcock is in the court and raising objections for his client.
Earlier 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′ 3″ 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’s testimony – which seemed to at least go fine on that level.
