Phil McGraw‘s Advantage Avenue Media is in chapter court docket and is concurrently suing its distribution accomplice, Trinity Broadcasting, for breach of contract that the corporate says led to the chapter 11 submitting. However indicators that the 15-month-old community was struggling have been there nicely earlier than Advantage Avenue started chapter proceedings on July 2.
In its lawsuit, Advantage Avenue says Trinity Broadcasting — recognized for its Christian programming, and with a distribution community that reaches about 65 million houses within the U.S. — compelled its community, Advantage TV, into costly third-party distribution offers fairly than utilizing Trinity’s personal community of native stations and supplied “shoddy manufacturing providers” for Advantage TV’s packages, amongst different points. McGraw’s personal Peteski Productions gave Advantage Avenue a bridge mortgage to cowl some ongoing operations, however Advantage Avenue’s precarious funds made securing outdoors infusions of capital unimaginable, resulting in the chapter submitting.
A number of makes an attempt to achieve Trinity Broadcasting for remark have been unsuccessful.
Previous to the chapter submitting, nevertheless, there have been quite a few indicators that Advantage TV was present process a rocky begin to its life — even placing apart the questionable notion of launching a linear TV enterprise in a time when streaming is the default choice for the biggest share of viewers. And even the linear TV a part of Advantage Avenue’s providing (which additionally features a FAST channel and cellular app) wasn’t absolutely locked down: The channel is on the market over the air (although usually on digital subchannels) in most main markets and is on the market on some — however hardly all — cable and satellite tv for pc suppliers. Comcast’s Xfinity service, YouTube TV and Hulu + Dwell TV don’t carry it.
On the programming entrance, McGraw’s Dr. Phil Primetime is the flagship present for Advantage TV, but it surely additionally featured a morning and night newscast and a handful of authentic reveals, together with ones hosted by Nancy Grace and former Bachelor host Chris Harrison. Advantage Avenue additionally introduced a take care of the Skilled Bull Riders tour to hold its occasions, which kicked off in July 2024. By October, nevertheless, PBR had pulled its programming from Advantage TV, saying the community had but to pay rights charges. The 2 sides are in arbitration over the dispute.
Extra lately, the night newscast was scrapped in favor of a morning present and dwell hourly updates throughout different elements of the day. Following the chapter submitting, all reveals — together with Dr. Phil Primetime — have stopped manufacturing, leaving Advantage TV as one thing of a zombie channel. Reruns of McGraw’s varied packages and some infomercials fill the day. The final out there morning newscast on the Advantage TV app is from July 1.
On the digital aspect, Advantage TV’s YouTube channel has fewer than 90,000 subscribers, and whereas a handful of movies there have tallied one million or extra views (based mostly on YouTube’s 30-second qualifier), the largest one from the final three months has simply 40,000.
Advantage TV additionally made headlines — not significantly constructive ones — for McGraw’s embedding with ICE brokers on raids within the early days of Donald Trump’s second presidential administration. Within the segments aired on Advantage TV, “border czar” Tom Homan states that that the raids showcased issues with so-called sanctuary cities, which McGraw (and Advantage’s newscasters) seemingly take at face worth. McGraw additionally interviewed Trump a number of instances in the course of the 2024 marketing campaign.
Advantage TV by no means reached a large viewers — in primetime, it averaged a paltry 27,000 viewers in 2024, rating one hundred and thirtieth amongst broadcast and cable shops. The corporate touted its January efficiency (albeit with none detailed numbers), noting that Advantage TV moved as much as sixty fifth place for the month. That will have meant a median viewers within the low six figures, based mostly on 2024 knowledge, and was additionally the height for Advantage TV: By the second quarter of 2025, its viewers dipped to simply 17,000 primetime viewers.