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Less than a year after Merit TV's launch, Dr. Phil McGraw's floundering network is hemorrhaging cash, losing staff, and putting on fake shows to woo investors, Knewz.com can reveal.
That's the word of Merit TV insiders, including one who says McGraw's enterprise is resorting to desperate stunts.
Our source said on February 2 "big potential investors came to tour the newsroom," and to make the company look like it's thriving, higher-ups "staged an entire fake show that never actually aired."
The insider added: "The second the money people left, the whole production shut down." Industry sources added warning signs have been evident from the start.
Four months in, McGraw's network reportedly abruptly slashed nearly one-third of its employees – many of whom had relocated from New York and Los Angeles for their Texas-based jobs.
"Dr. Phil promised us we would be the 'future of television,' but what we got was a chaotic, underfunded mess," said a former staffer, who was part of the August layoffs.
The raging ex-employee also seethed: "They fired us with zero warning – with no compensation. We uprooted our lives for this?"
Parent company Merit Street Media – a partnership between McGraw and the Christian-based Trinity Broadcasting Network – defended the cuts as a "strategic consolidation."
The business says it has distribution deals with DirecTV, Dish, AT&T U-verse, Verizon Fios, Comcast, Sling and Samsung TV+ and is available on the free MeritTV app. But it's missing from major streaming platforms such as Fubo, YouTube TV and Hulu + Live TV.
Yet sources said the money-starved network is leaning on Trinity to prop up its distribution and audiences are too small to be estimated by third-party viewership tracking companies.
Industry pros said 74-year-old Dr. Phil – who rose to fame as America's no-nonsense therapist with his self-named chatfest – is shockingly out of his depth.
"There was no real game plan and now he's paying the price," an experienced TV executive told us.
Even McGraw's flagship show, Dr. Phil Primetime, is said to be struggling.
Another Merit TV employee put it bluntly, claiming: "This thing is circling the drain. If they don't get a huge cash infusion, Dr. Phil's big TV dream is about to become his biggest failure."