Network

It was not a good day for Dr. Phil.

Phillip McGraw, the genial celebrity psychologist who spent a career calling out the behavior of others and doling out zingers, found himself upbraided by a bankruptcy judge.

Merit Street Media, McGraw’s new network, had filed for bankruptcy protection in July, a little more than a year after he launched the media startup, and then sued its distribution partner, Trinity Broadcasting Network.

During a nearly three-hour hearing in Dallas last month, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Scott Everett said that he’d “never seen a case” like the Chapter 11 filing McGraw’s company was attempting.

Everett cited evidence indicating McGraw had “violated” a court order by deleting “unflattering” text messages that allegedly described his plan to use the bankruptcy to “wipe out” creditor claims.

“What makes this case unique, unfortunately, is that it has been plagued with the attempted destruction of relevant evidence and less than truthful testimony by some of the key players,” said Everett, alluding to McGraw and his associates in the case.

Everett ruled that Merit Street be liquidated.

Following the hearing, a spokesperson for McGraw’s production company vigorously denied the accusation that he destroyed evidence and said he is appealing the ruling.

“Dr. McGraw’s excellent record of integrity, success and service to millions over two decades speaks for itself,” said Chip Babcock, attorney for McGraw’s production company.

The unraveling of McGraw’s media venture was a gut punch for the celebrity therapist who has assiduously built a reputation — and tremendous personal wealth — as one of the most trusted voices on television. But his fortunes faded amid a dying market for syndicated TV and clashes with a distributor and partner.

After 21 years as host of the successful syndicated talk show “Dr. Phil,” McGraw went out on his own last year. He launched Merit Street Media in Texas, a company that he said would promote “family values” and serve as an antidote to “woke” culture, only to find that his ambitions collided with a new television reality.

Unlike “Dr. Phil,” Merit Street was untethered to the well-oiled machine of Paramount Studios in Los Angeles, where it was filmed, and top-tier distribution partner CBS.

Moreover, the sheer force of McGraw’s personality could not overcome the fact that linear TV is on the wane. Syndicated daytime TV shows are no longer the cash cows they used to be as most viewers consume content through streaming and other digital outlets such as YouTube and TikTok.

“By the time he put this new company together, the ‘Dr. Phil’ era had kind of ended,” said Robert Thompson, director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University. “There is a shelf life to these characters and he reached his.”

An Oprah favorite

McGraw rose from clinical psychologist to an American living room staple and self-help guru in the late 1990s after Oprah Winfrey anointed him as her protégé.

Television’s then-reigning queen hired McGraw to prepare for her libel case brought by Texas cattlemen in 1997. They claimed her comments during an episode about mad cow disease disparaged them and caused beef prices to drop.

Winfrey prevailed, but it was McGraw, a former linebacker with the commanding presence of a sheriff from an old-time western, who emerged victorious.

Oprah Winfrey launched “Dr. Phil” after he advised her during her Texas cattlemen’s libel trial in the late 1990s.

(Christopher Smith / Invision / AP)

Much like books, pajama sets and certain chocolate brands, McGraw became one of Oprah’s favorite things. Recast as “Dr. Phil,” she featured him during weekly segments on her hugely popular talk show, starting in 1998. By 2002, a “Dr. Phil” spinoff began airing five days a week, produced by Winfrey’s Harpo Productions.

The show was distributed by CBS Media Ventures and filmed on a soundstage at Paramount studios on Melrose Avenue with a live audience, and it became the de facto voice for home viewers.

McGraw quickly earned a massive following for dispensing advice to cheating spouses, drug addicts, troubled teens, meddling in-laws, infamous criminals and celebrities. He delivered his no-nonsense, often blunt assessments wrapped in folksy Southern sayings such as “No matter how flat you make a pancake, it’s still got two sides.”

For more than two decades, “Dr. Phil” was a top-rated syndicated daytime talk show — 11 of those seasons at No. 1 — garnering 31 Daytime Emmy nominations. He was catapulted to stardom, appearing everywhere from late-night talk shows to sitcom cameos, even a character on “Sesame Street,” Dr. Feel. In 2020, he received a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.

Dr. Phil McGraw with his wife, Robin McGraw, his son Jay McGraw and his wife, Erica Dahm, as well as their two children, London and Avery, at the ceremony celebrating Dr. Phil receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame.

(Getty Images)

McGraw leveraged “Dr. Phil” as a launching pad for his ever-growing empire of bestselling books and various ancillary businesses, including a virtual addiction recovery program, a telemedicine app and production company, Stage 29, with his son Jay McGraw that produced shows like daytime’s “The Doctors.”

But as McGraw’s popularity and influence grew, so did the controversies.

The family of Britney Spears criticized him after he visited the troubled pop star when she was hospitalized on a psychiatric hold and issued a news release saying she was “in dire need of both medical and psychological intervention.”

A spokesperson for the Spears family said, “Rather than helping the family’s situation, the celebrity psychologist caused additional damage.”

McGraw later told viewers on his show that “I definitely think if I had it to do over again, I probably wouldn’t make any statement at all. Period.”

Claims of conflict

Questions were also raised that McGraw used his show to promote businesses and products connected to his family and affiliates, sometimes without fully disclosing those ties.

In 2006, McGraw settled a lawsuit for $10.5 million with consumers who alleged that he defrauded them by making false claims about a line of nutritional and weight-loss supplements that he endorsed on “Dr. Phil.”

He faced a Federal Trade Commission investigation into false advertising and the line was eventually discontinued.

McGraw denied the allegations and did not admit to wrongdoing or misrepresentation in the settlement.

“Dr. McGraw’s career stands among the most successful in television history,” Babcock said. “His programs always have been completely transparent, with all brand integrations under full network oversight and full FCC compliance.”

The on-air promotion of McGraw’s family businesses, such as his wife Robin McGraw’s skincare line and lifestyle brand and his son Jay McGraw’s books during “integrations,” also drew scrutiny.

Dr. Phil McGraw and son Jay McGraw.

(Jason LaVeris / FilmMagic)

“Dr. Phil” episodes frequently featured guests suffering from addiction who were often offered the opportunity to check into a treatment facility at the end of the episode.

In 2017, an investigation by STAT News and the Boston Globe alleged that the show highlighted specific treatment facilities in exchange for those recovery programs purchasing various products affiliated with McGraw.

A spokesman for the show had denied the allegations, saying that “any suggestion that appearances on Dr. Phil’s show are linked to the purchase or use of this program is false.”

McGraw’s wattage remained undimmed. He continued to branch into new ventures. He launched a podcast in 2019, “Phil in the Blanks,” and prime-time TV shows like “Bull,” a legal drama on CBS based on his experiences as a trial strategist, and another CBS legal drama, “So Help Me Todd.”

The “Dr. Phil” show has said that since its premiere, it has provided $35 million in resources to its guests after they appeared.

During the last years of “Dr. Phil,” staffers and viewers noticed that programming began to shift away from advising relationships, parenting and money issues to more conservative and cultural issues such as immigration and transgender athletes.

“He took a political slant already, but once COVID hit, [the show] skewed more and more political,” said one former longtime “Dr. Phil” staffer who declined to be named out of fear of retaliation.

During an appearance on Fox News in April 2020, McGraw said that pandemic lockdowns would be more fatal than the virus, drawing a widespread backlash on social media.

McGraw later posted a video saying he supported CDC guidelines but was concerned about the mental health effects of long-term quarantine.

“He was very good about getting big stories, but we had no input, and believe me, if we ever wanted to or tried, we’d be just told ‘no,’” said a former executive at CBS, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the subject matter.

Starting over in Texas

In 2023, McGraw announced that he was leaving CBS and returning to Texas to launch a new venture and broaden his audience, citing “grave concerns for the American family” and that he was “determined to help restore a clarity of purpose as well as our core values.”

Merit Street built a studio in a former AT&T call center in Fort Worth. Many of the staffers were veterans of “Dr. Phil” or had worked on McGraw-related content and relocated from Los Angeles to Texas.

Dr. Phil and President Trump at the National Day of Prayer event at the White House in May.

(Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty Images)

The network, whose name was derived from meritocracy (with shades of main street), premiered in April 2024.

“Merit Street Media will be a resource of information and strategies to fight for America and its families, which are under a cultural ‘woke’ assault as never before,” McGraw said in a statement.

McGraw aired “exclusive” interviews with Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on his flagship, “Dr. Phil Primetime.”

Programming consisted of a slate of news, entertainment and conservative commentary programs with former syndicated television stars Nancy Grace and Steve Harvey, whose Steve Harvey Global had a 5% stake in the company, according to Merit’s bankruptcy filings.

In January, McGraw made headlines when he taped interviews with Trump’s top border policy advisor Tom Homan during controversial immigration raids by ICE agents in Los Angeles.

But Merit struggled to find an audience; only 27,000 viewers tuned into the network weekly during 2024, placing it at 130 out of 153 U.S. channels, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

“It’s totally false to say Merit had bad ratings,” Babcock said. “For a startup, it was like a rocket ship; at one point it passed CNN in the first few months of its existence.”

Merit soon scrapped the live audience for “Dr. Phil Primetime” and eventually production on its original programming came to a halt.

Four months after the network’s debut, the company cut 30% of its staff, including workers who had relocated from Los Angeles.

Facing mounting debts, Merit filed for bankruptcy protection in July, listing liabilities of at least $100 million.

“You could see the writing on the wall,” said the former CBS executive. “Ratings for syndication were dropping.”

While still a household name, McGraw was part of a waning breed of TV syndication stars — Judge Judy, Maury Povich and Ellen DeGeneres among them — whose shows were fast becoming nostalgic relics.

Former McGraw staffers from his CBS days said it appeared that he thought he could simply translate his name recognition and longtime popularity to the new venture, but failed to grasp the new digital media landscape.

“The programming model that he launched in 2024 was more appropriate two decades earlier,” said Syracuse University’s Thompson.

Merit Street faced internal strife as well, according to former staffers and court filings.

Former employees described tensions between Los Angeles transplants and less experienced nonunion crews.

“It was total disorganization,” said one former field producer who had worked for the “Dr. Phil” show and then relocated to Texas to work for Merit Street, who declined to be named out of fear of retribution. “Everyone kept saying this was a startup, and maybe it was. People made decisions but had no idea what they were doing,” the producer added.

A representative of McGraw’s production company conceded the startup had growing pains.

“The company thought they could produce the same quality production with less people,” he said.

Compounding matters, relations between Merit and its business and broadcast partner TBN also soured.

Merit alleged in its lawsuit that TBN provided “comically dysfunctional” technical services, with teleprompters and monitors blacked out during live programs before a studio audience.

The suit further alleged that TBN failed to pay TV distributors and had reneged on its promise to cover $100 million in production services and other costs.

McGraw, through his production company, bankrolled the struggling enterprise from December 2024 to May 2025, lending it $25 million, according to Merit’s lawsuit.

For its part, TBN accused McGraw and his production company Peteski Productions of “fraudulent inducement,” alleging in a countersuit that it had invested $100 million into Merit and that McGraw and Peteski had failed to bring in promised advertising revenue.

TBN said McGraw reached out to the company as a potential replacement for CBS as a distribution partner during the latter half of 2022.

“McGraw specifically represented to TBN that he wanted to change networks because of what he perceived to be CBS’s censorship of the content aired on the ‘Dr. Phil Show.’ As McGraw put it, ‘I don’t want snot-nose lawyers telling me what I can and can’t say on TV,’” the lawsuit states.

Instead, they claimed in their complaint, McGraw and his company engaged in a “fraudulent scheme” to fleece TBN, a not-for-profit corporation.

In a statement to Variety, a spokesperson for McGraw and his production company called TBN’s lawsuit “riddled with provable lies.”

TBN did not respond to a request for comment.

Merit also clashed with another partner: Professional Bull Riders, which in November 2024 canceled its four-year contract with Merit and pulled its content, claiming the company had failed to pay the fees it owed.

Professional Bull Riders claims Merit Street stopped paying its broadcast fees and is owed $181 million.

(Anadolu via Getty Images)

PBR, which later signed with Fox Nation and CBS, alleged in a separate lawsuit that Merit breached their contract and is seeking $181 million.

“We’re glad he’s being held accountable,” said Mark Shapiro, the president and chief operating officer of TKO Group Holdings, parent company of PBR, in a statement to The Times.

“Merit Street agreed to work out its differences with PBR in a confidential proceeding which is ongoing. We were therefore surprised that PBR would publicly accuse us of violating our agreement when the facts are in dispute,” the company said in an earlier statement.

Two weeks after Merit filed for bankruptcy, McGraw announced the launch of another new network, Envoy Media Co., that would include live, “balanced news,” original entertainment programming and “immersive viewer experiences,” as well as original programming from friend and former Merit stakeholder Steve Harvey.

Last month, Envoy struck a distribution deal with Charter Communications.

“Dr. McGraw remains deeply proud of his past work and the millions of people it has reached. He’s now turning that same purpose and energy toward Envoy Media,” Babcock said.

But the Merit legal drama is far from over.

TBN has since alleged that Merit Street filed for bankruptcy in bad faith as a way to secure funding for Envoy.

A spokesperson for Peteski called TBN’s allegation “blatantly false” and said Envoy is independently financed.

Earlier this month, Judge Everett rejected Merit’s motion to pause the company’s liquidation while his ruling is appealed. He cited deleted texts in which McGraw described plans by Merit to file for bankruptcy protection to “wipe out” debts from its main creditors, TBN and PBR.

“Candor to the court is critical,” said Everett during his original ruling, and then declared that Merit Street Media “was as dead as a door nail when the bankruptcy was filed.”

ONE of Europe’s most underrated cities will soon get a metro system after decades of planning.

Belgrade in Serbia – one of the oldest city’s is Europe – is also Europe‘s biggest capital city without a subway, but soon that will change.

As part of a contract between Chinese and French construction companies, Belgrade’s first subway line is expected to open in 2030 costing around €4.4billion (£3.8billion).

A second line will follow in the early 2030s and a third line has also been planned.

Designs for the new metro network in the city could include driverless trains that would be operated from a single hub and doors separating the platforms from the track.

Digging of the tunnels will start next spring, with each tunnel set to be around 100 metres long and cost around €20million (£17.5million).

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According to Bloomberg, Andreja Mladenovic, who runs JKP Belgrade Metro and Train, who is overseeing the project, said: “Belgrade has grown far too big not to have a subway.

“It’s an absolute game changer.”

He added: “It costs more at first when you build it, but cuts costs later.

“It’ll be state-of-the-art, and worth it.”

Plans for a subway network in the city were first considered in the 1930s when the capital was growing in population.

However, World War II stopped these plans going ahead.

In the 1960s, Belgrade’s economy was expanding again and new plans were drawn up in the 70s, however these went nowhere.

In the early 80s, a debt crisis meant all hopes were lost for a metro network, and over the following decade, Yugoslavia disintegrated.

It wasn’t until 1999 that Belgrade could rebuild itself.

Today, the often-overlooked city is home to floating nightclubs and secluded beaches.

As a result of sitting on two rivers, Belgrade has a number of floating restaurants, bars and nightclubs referred to as ‘Splavs’.

Along the Sava River, Splavs often play pop music, whereas the Splavs that are found on the banks of the Danube River have more of a rock vibe.

And drinks onboard are super cheap, with a beer setting you back around £3.40 or a cocktail setting you back around £4.75.

But Belgrade doesn’t just have floating bars and restaurants, there are also a number of historical locations to explore.

For example, you could head to the Belgrade Fortress, which was built back in the third century to protect the city from invaders.

The fortress, of course, has a number of panoramic viewpoints, but visitors can also participate in a number of activities and attractions, as well as explore museums.

You could also visit the Church of Saint Sava, which is a large Orthodox church.

Or explore the Nikola Tesla Museum, which is dedicated to the life and work of the famous inventor.

The museum contains many of his personal belongings as well as his inventions.

Return flights from London Luton Airport to Belgrade cost around £36 in January and the flight takes around three hours.

In other rail news, a world-famous English city is getting a new train station in huge £6.7billion plans.

Plus, a brand new crime-themed train experience is coming to UK city… but you don’t actually go anywhere.

Spanish language network Univision is back on YouTube TV after parent company TelevisaUnivision reached a new distribution agreement with the Google-owned streaming service.

TelevisaUnivision announced Wednesday that it has a multi-year “expanded partnership” with YouTube TV, which will carry the company’s U.S. networks including Univision, Unimas, TUDN and Galavisión on its base plan available to its 10 million subscribers.

The deal ends a two-month blackout of the channels, including Los Angeles flagship KMEX.

Under the new pact, YouTube will also make Univision’s subscription streaming service Vix available on its Primetime Channels hub.

“We are pleased to have reached an agreement that restores Univision to YouTube TV, ensuring millions of Hispanics can access the news, sports, and entertainment they care about and have relied on for over 70 years,” said Daniel Alegre, CEO of TelevisaUnivision, said in a statement.

YouTube TV had sought to move Univision’s channels to a more expensive Spanish-language add-on package, amounting to an 18% fee increase for customers.

Putting Univision on a higher-priced tier also would have cut into subscriber revenues, as the fees the networks received are based on the number of customers paying for the higher-priced tier.

The proposal became a major sticking point in negotiations, keeping the Univision channels off YouTube TV since Sept. 30 and drawing the attention of Washington. A number of legislators expressed concerns that consumers were being asked to pay more for Spanish-language programming.

YouTube TV was introduced in 2017 as a lower-priced alternative to cable and satellite packages. But the cost of programming goes up with every deal made to carry major networks, leading to blackouts and tense negotiations.

The Walt Disney Co.’s networks, including ESPN, were off YouTube TV for 10 days before the two sides could agree on a new carriage deal on Nov. 14.

NBCUniversal’s channels were also at risk of being pulled before a new deal was reached on Oct. 2.

The price of a YouTube TV subscription — $82.99 a month — has more than doubled since the service launched.

Bill Melugin, an Orange County native who made his name at Fox News covering the U.S. southern border, is relocating to Washington, D.C. where he will cover Congress for the network.

Fox News announced Thursday that Melugin will begin his new role as congressional correspondent immediately.

“Bill’s dogged dedication to uncovering the story and deep understanding of national issues make him an excellent fit to cover the complex world of Congress,” Fox News President and Executive Editor Jay Wallace said in a statement.

Melugin, 35, has been a Los Angeles-based correspondent for the network since 2021, becoming a regular on-screen presence with his coverage of the undocumented migrants crossing the southern U.S. border. He did 1,000 live shots from the Rio Grande Valley in 2022.

Melugin handled a number of other major breaking news events across the country, including the 2025 California wildfires and the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

Melugin’s move to Washington is an indication that Fox News has larger plans for him. He has been brought to Washington several times in recent years for fill-in work at the anchor desk and a permanent role there is likely in his future.

Melugin has been reluctant to leave Los Angeles as he is close to his widowed mother Audrey, who lives in Orange County. But in a 2023 interview with the Times, she gave her blessing to any advancement opportunity.

“I’ve always told him if you have a better opportunity do it, but he is very protective of me,” she said. “I appreciate it. But I don’t want to be the one to hold him back either.”

Before joining Fox News Media, Melugin was an investigative reporter for the Fox-owned station KTTV in Los Angeles, where he was awarded three local Emmy awards for investigative work. He was part of the KTTV team that uncovered exclusive pictures of California Gov. Gavin Newsom dining at French Laundry without a mask at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

He previously held anchor and reporter roles at Fox TV affiliates in Charlotte, North Carolina, and El Paso, Texas.

After walking away from its TV rights deal with Major League Baseball earlier this year, ESPN has a new package that will provide additional games for its streaming customers.

The deal announced Wednesday by the league will also return baseball to NBC and bring three MLB events — an opening night game, the Home Run Derby and the Field of Dreams game — to Netflix for the first time.

As part of the deal, ESPN will integrate the league’s streaming platform MLB.TV into its recently launched direct-to-consumer service that provides the sports channels to consumers with or without a cable subscription.

MLB.TV provides local telecasts of out-of-market games to consumers. In the 2026 season, new customers will now be able to purchase the service as part of an ESPN subscription. Pricing has not yet been set for the combined services.

ESPN Unlimited subscribers will get an additional 150 out-of-market games over the course of the season at no additional cost. ESPN will offer local games in the six MLB markets that no longer have regional sports networks — San Diego, Cleveland, Seattle, Minnesota, Arizona and Colorado. The games, which are produced by MLB, will be available to purchase for streaming in those markets through ESPN.

ESPN will no longer carry “Sunday Night Baseball,” a staple of the network for decades, but will have a package of 30 weeknight games. It will also retain its coverage of the MLB Little League Classic and carry a game on Memorial Day.

ESPN is paying $550 million for the new three-year package, the same as the last contract, according to people familiar with talks who were not authorized to comment publicly.

While ESPN and MLB exchanged harsh words when their longtime arrangement broke up earlier this year, both sides praised the eventual outcome, which puts a greater emphasis on streaming.

“Bringing MLB.TV to ESPN’s new app while maintaining a presence on linear television reflects a balanced approach to the shifts taking place in the way that fans watch baseball and gives MLB a meaningful presence on an important destination for fans of all sports,” MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement.

ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro called the deal “a fan-friendly agreement” that prioritizes the Walt Disney Co. unit’s “streaming future.”

“Sunday Night Baseball” will move to NBC, with 25 prime-time games on the broadcast network or NBCUniversal’s streaming platform Peacock. Already the home of “Sunday Night Football,” and “Sunday Night Basketball,” the addition of the MLB — at $200 million a season — means NBC will have live sports in prime time on every Sunday throughout the year.

The network is also picking up the wild card round of the MLB postseason that had been carried on ESPN.

In 2027 and 2028, NBC will carry the most consequential game played on the final Sunday of the season.

NBC Sports also gains the rights to the late Sunday morning game, which will be carried on Peacock and followed by a “whip-around” show presenting action from contests around the league that day. Peacock carried the morning game in 2023 and 2024 before it went to Roku this past season.

MLB games exclusive to Peacock will also be shown on the newly launched NBC Sports Network, which is being offered to cable and satellite TV providers.

Netflix is paying around $50 million per year to carry the 2026 opening night game between the San Francisco Giants and the New York Yankees on March 25. The annual Home Run Derby, previously on ESPN, also moves to the streamer, as does the Field of Dreams game, which will be played in Dyersville, Iowa, where the set for “Field of Dreams” is located.

The deal continues Netflix’s approach of offering appointment sporting events to its subscribers rather than investing in a full season package.

The new MLB deals only run for three years. The league wants them to align with its major TV rights package that includes the playoffs, the World Series and the All-Star Game. Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery’s TBS carry those packages until 2028.

Starting Saturday, NBCUniversal’s cable news channel MSNBC will be called MS NOW, a makeover that may come as a shock to its loyal audience.

It’s why every MSNBC host has been sending the same message in promotional spots, on their programs and in press interviews about the new moniker. They say: We’re not going anywhere and we’re not changing.

“ ‘Morning Joe’ will still be ‘Morning Joe,’ ” said the program’s co-host Joe Scarborough in a recent Zoom conversation. “Chris Hayes will still be Chris Hayes. Rachel Maddow will still be Rachel. Lawrence O’Donnell will still be Lawrence.”

“We’re just going to keep doing what we do,” added Scarborough’s wife and co-host, Mika Brzezinski.

While no programming changes are planned, the rebranding will be a test in an age when brand awareness is difficult to achieve as the media marketplace is highly fractured. MSNBC kept its name for 29 years even after its founding partner Microsoft gave up its stake in the network.

Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough on “Morning Joe.”

(MSNBC)

MS NOW — an acronym for “My Source for News, Opinion and the World” — is the result of the politically progressive network being spun off into a company called Versant. Parent company Comcast announced the move last year as it no longer wants the slow, steady decline of the cable business holding back its stock price. Versant, which also includes CNBC, USA Network, Oxygen, E! and Golf Channel, will be its own publicly traded company starting in January.

The new ownership for MSNBC led to a separation from NBC News, which operated MSNBC since its launch in 1996. Although Versant leadership initially said the name would remain, NBCUniversal wanted to avoid having the network’s brand attached to a channel it no longer controlled.

Versant executives will likely be nervous when they look at the Nielsen ratings the first few weeks after the name change. But Julie Doughty, regional executive director of naming and verbal identity for the global brand consulting firm Landor, believes the shift is minor enough for consumers to get used to quickly.

“I’m sure they were concerned about disrupting the brand awareness they’ve built and losing the legitimacy and gravitas of the NBC name,” Doughty said. “This new name closely tracks the original. It has the same number of letters. MS is still in the front, which is a nice bit of continuity for those customers who already just shorten the name to MS.”

Doughty added, “The real test will come in the content. Will it continue to have high standards and deserve their trust as a mainstream new source?”

The network appeared to pass its first big test as a freestanding news organization with coverage of the Nov. 4 off-year election that saw a strong showing for the Democrats and the passage of the congressional redistricting proposition in California.

Nielsen data showed MSNBC finished well ahead of CNN on the night and just slightly behind perennial cable news ratings leader Fox News.

MSNBC becomes MS NOW on Nov. 15.

(MSNBC)

MS NOW executives say they remain committed to covering breaking news, staffing the channel’s own Washington bureau and entering news-gathering agreements with Sky for international coverage and AccuWeather. A number of NBC News journalists, including White House correspondent Vaughn Hillyard, justice and intelligence correspondent Ken Dilanian and national correspondent Jacob Soboroff, moved to MS NOW with the belief there will be more opportunities for expansive reporting.

“I won’t say their names, but some of the best reporters at NBC are far more disappointed with this than we are,” Scarborough said. “Their window just went from having 30 minutes on ‘Morning Joe,’ where influencers are, to 35 seconds on a morning show or maybe a sound bite on ‘NBC Nightly News.’”

The network is leaning heavily into promoting its lineup of personalities who in the current era of divided politics serve as tribal leaders for the audience.

“One of the things that so impressed me three years ago when I joined MS was the depth of the relationship with the fans,” MSNBC President Rebecca Kutler said at a recent press breakfast at the network’s new headquarters in Midtown Manhattan once occupied by the New York Times. “Eight hours a week — that is a ton of time and that is how much people watch us.”

The only signature MSNBC talent who chose to go with NBC News is political analyst Steve Kornacki. Willie Geist will remain host of NBC’s “Sunday Today” in addition to his duties on “Morning Joe.”

MSNBC on-air personalities believe the lack of a large corporate owner will be freeing at a time when journalism organizations and their parent companies are fearing the wrath of President Trump and his threats of business-related retribution over coverage he doesn’t like.

Last month at an MSNBC fan event in Manhattan, Maddow stirred up the crowd by touting the network’s editorial independence. She called the network a “nontoxic workplace” that is “at no risk of right-wing bloggers who are some billionaire’s friend.”

The comment was a reference to Bari Weiss, founder of anti-”woke” website the Free Press, who was hired to be editor in chief of CBS News and is a clear favorite of parent company Paramount’s chief executive, David Ellison.

Scarborough and Brzezinski said they have noticed how fans greet them with a bit more intensity since Trump has returned to the White House.

“When people see us on the street or the airport, they hug us a little longer and they thank us a little more,” Scarborough said. “They ask if everything is going to be OK.”

Scarborough said the new corporate setup will allow more entrepreneurial opportunities for the on-air talent in other platforms such as newsletters, podcasts and live events.

Look around lately and 20th century science fiction has become 21st century fact. Real life in the year 2025 — the date in which Stephen King set his 1982 novel “The Running Man” — involves technological surveillance, corporate feudalism, infotainment propaganda and extreme inequality, all things that his story about a grisly game show predicted. King, like the great sci-fi authors Philip K. Dick and George Orwell before him, was writing a cautionary tale. But the decades since have seen people take their bleak ideas as a blueprint, like when Elon Musk bragged on X that the Tesla Cybertruck is “what Bladerunner would have driven,” missing the point that we don’t want to live in a dystopia (and that Bladerunner isn’t even Harrison Ford’s name in “Blade Runner”).

The timing couldn’t be better — and worse — for Edgar Wright to remake “The Running Man,” only to put no fire into it. He and his co-writer Michael Bacall have adapted a fairly faithful version of the book, unlike the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger meathead extravaganza. (The only way to suffer through that one is if you imagine it’s a parody of pun-driven testosterone flicks.) Tellingly, they’ve left off the year 2025 and only lightly innovated the production design with spherical drones. But there’s little urgency or outrage. Instead of a funhouse mirror of what could be, it’s merely a smudged reflection of what is.

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Glen Powell stars as Ben Richards, a cash-strapped, employer-blacklisted father who begrudgingly agrees to be a contestant on a television hit that no one has survived. There’s only one network, FreeVee, and its goals overlap enough with those of the government that the distinction between them isn’t worth parsing. Every day Ben dodges a death squad, he’ll earn money for his wife, Sheila (Jayme Lawson), and sick baby, up to a billion “new” dollars if he can last a month. (The updated bills have the Governator’s face printed on them.)

But as ever, the game is rigged. The network’s boss, Dan Killian (Josh Brolin), and smarmy host Bobby T (Colman Domingo) rally viewers to turn Ben in for a cash prize, fibbing that he’s a freeloader who refuses to get a job, the typical tax-leeching scapegoat trotted out to turn the middle class against the poor and the poor against themselves. One enraged FreeVee-addicted granny (Sandra Dickinson) genuinely believes Ben eats puppies. “She used to be a kind, clever woman,” her son says with resignation.

Clearly, Wright wants to make a political satire that echoes the drivel of our own actual news. The politics are there in the armored vehicles rolling down city streets and the masked militias out to nab Ben for the bounty money. Yet we don’t feel the paranoia of eyeballs over the streets, even though it turns out that there’s no way to disguise Powell’s foxlike features under a silly stick-on mustache. A hustler named Molie (William H. Macy) warns that the TVs themselves are watching people. It doesn’t really feel like they are. I’ve felt more uneasy in a house with an Alexa.

As for the satire, this faintly cruder version of right now doesn’t have much bite. Little we see is surprising, stimulating or even that futuristic. Screens blare commercials for a drink called Liquid Death (real) and a Kardashian-esque reality show called “The Americanos” (essentially real). The film’s sole representative of upper-middle-class normality — a hostage named Amelia (Emilia Jones) — could trade places with any Pilates instructor.

When an underground rebel, Bradley (Daniel Ezra), breaks down how the network chases ratings by flattening people into archetypes, he’s not telling today’s audience anything it doesn’t already know. King wrote the character as an environmental activist; here, he’s more of a TV critic. Likewise, Bradley’s crony Elton (Michael Cera) has mutated from a pathetic idealist to a Monster-chugging chaos agent — as if “Home Alone’s” Kevin McCallister grew up to join Antifa. Elton’s motivations don’t make sense, but at least Cera barges into the movie with so much energy that his sequence is a hoot. Chuckling that he likes his “bacon extra crispy” as he takes aim at a police squad, he also breaks the seal on this remake’s use of bad puns. From his scenes on, the script crams in as many groaners as it can.

Wright has talent for casting actors that pop. Domingo’s fatuous celebrity host is fantastic, even doing the retro running man dance with Kid ‘n Play aplomb. We see just enough of Ben’s fellow competitors, played by Katy O’Brian and Martin Herlihy, to wish we had more time with them. One of the hunters, Karl Glusman, has so much intensity that I’ll be looking out for what he does next. Pity that the charismatic Lee Pace’s main villain has to spend most of the film covered by a shroud.

Meanwhile, Powell is being put through his own test of Hollywood survival. Everyone seems to agree that he’s the next movie star, but he hasn’t yet landed the right star-making vehicle. Here, as ever, he’s being treated like a Swiss Army knife on a construction site: Handy at a lot of things from humor to action to drama to romance, but his character lacks the oomph to truly showcase his skills. We’re told over and over that Ben is the angriest man in the world, but Powell’s innate likability, that cocky-charming heroic twinkle in his eye, makes him come across peevish at worst. His best moments are all comedy, like when Ben slaps on a thick brogue to hide out as an Irish priest, or his snappy back-and-forth with a psychologist who puts him through a word-association test. (Anarchy? “Win.” Justice? “Hilarious.”)

Still, I missed the truly misanthropic lead of King’s novella, a sour bigot radicalized to see himself not just as a cog in a machine but as a spoke in a revolution. There’s lip service to that idea here, but the film doesn’t take itself seriously enough to give us the chills. It’s not fair to judge “The Running Man” by how closely it hews to the book — and if you remember King’s ending, then you know there’s no way Wright could have pulled that off, although his fix is pretty clever. But tonally, there’s just not enough rage, gore or fun.

Maybe Wright feels the same way too. He’s been wanting to make this movie since 2017 and had the lousy luck to do it for Paramount in the year that the studio embraced the government and sacrificed its employees for its own billion-dollar reward. There’s no bleaker satire than making it through “The Running Man’s” end credits, past images of a raised fist that reads “Together Against the Network,” to see the last words on screen: A Skydance Corporation. Or maybe there is, if someone makes a documentary about what Edgar Wright may have had to cut.

NBCUniversal is launching a new cable network Monday that will carry live sports events, including some that are currently exclusive to its streaming service Peacock.

The company announced Thursday that the new NBC Sports Network will be carried on YouTube TV and parent Comcast’s Xfinity service. Deals with other pay-TV providers are expected in the coming months, the company said.

The new channel will enable NBC to make its sports offerings more attractive to advertisers who may balk at the limited reach of its Peacock streaming service, which currently has 41 million subscribers. There is little duplication between Peacock subscribers and the nearly 60 million households still buying a traditional pay-TV package.

Sports is also a key reason consumers keep paying for cable and satellite TV. NBCU executives believe the channel will help distributors such as Comcast to retain customers.

The new channel will carry Monday night NBA games that were previously exclusive to Peacock. During the Winter Olympic Games in February, it will be the home of Gold Zone, the daily whip-around coverage show hosted by Scott Hanson that was offered only on Peacock during the Summer Games in 2024.

While the deal has not been officially announced, NBCU is expected to get a package of Major League Baseball games, some of which will be shown on NBCSN.

Other events from the NBC sports portfolio that will appear on the channel include WNBA regular-season and playoff games, Big Ten, Big East and Big 12 men’s and women’s college basketball, select coverage of major golf tournaments, Premier League Soccer and undercard races at the Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Oats.

NBCUniversal had a cable sports network but folded it in 2021 after it lost the TV rights to the NHL. But the company has since made a significant investment in live sports that has strong appeal to advertisers.

In 2024, the company entered an 11-year deal to be a major media rights partner with the NBA.

The new channel will also carry Peacock’s sports talk shows including “The Dan Patrick Show,” “The Dan Le Batard Show,” and “Fantasy Football Happy Hour with Matthew Berry.”

Sony Pictures Television and CBS have struck a compromise in their hard-fought legal battle over distribution rights to the popular “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy!” syndicated game shows.

“We have reached an amicable resolution,” Sony and CBS said Friday in a joint statement. “We look forward to working together to continue bringing these beloved shows to audiences and stations around the world.”

Financial terms were not disclosed.

As part of the deal, CBS will continue to distribute the shows in the U.S. for an additional 2 ½ years — through the 2027-2028 television season. After that, Sony will control the domestic distribution rights.

Sony owns both shows and produces them on its Culver City lot.

The shows have retained their popularity and solid ratings even in the streaming age, as traditional TV has declined. They remain among the most-watched programs on television.

The dispute began more than a year ago, when Sony terminated its distribution deal with CBS and later filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit that claimed CBS had entered into unauthorized licensing deals for the shows and then paid itself a commission. Sony also maintained that budget cuts within CBS, which is owned by Paramount, had hobbled the network’s efforts to support the two shows.

Earlier this year, Sony attempted to cut CBS out of the picture, escalating the dispute.

CBS has long maintained that it had the legal rights to distribute the shows to television stations around the country. The broadcaster previously alleged that Sony’s claims were “rooted in the fact they simply don’t like the deal the parties agreed to decades ago.”

For years, CBS has raked in up to 40% of the fees that TV stations pay to carry the shows. The network took over the distribution of the programs when it acquired syndication company King World Productions in 1999.

King World struck deals with the show’s original producer, Merv Griffin Enterprises, in the early 1980s to distribute “Jeopardy!” and “Wheel of Fortune.” Sony later acquired Griffin’s company, but those early agreements remained in effect.

As part of this week’s resolution, CBS will manage all advertising sales through the 2029-2030 television season.

However, Sony will take over all marketing, promotions and affiliate relations for the shows after the current television season, which ends in mid-2026. Sony will also handle the lucrative brand integration campaigns.

In another element that was important to Sony, the studio will claim international distribution rights beginning this December.

Drew Brees is in at Fox Sports.

Mark Sanchez is out.

The network announced Friday that Brees, the MVP of Super Bowl XLIV, has been hired as an NFL game analyst. He will join play-by-play announcer Adam Amin in the booth starting Nov. 16.

Amin had previously been paired with Sanchez, who is facing a felony battery charge after a physical altercation with a 69-year-old truck driver in Indianapolis last month. Sanchez, who was stabbed in the abdomen during the incident, has not been on the air since then, and a Fox Sports spokesperson told The Times on Friday that he “is no longer with the network.”

“There will be no further comment at this time,” the spokesperson added.

Sanchez has been charged with a level five felony of battery involving serious bodily injury as well as two misdemeanors — unauthorized entry of a motor vehicle and public intoxication — after an Oct. 4 scuffle with Indiana resident Perry Tole.

Sanchez was in Indianapolis that weekend to cover the Colts’ game against the Las Vegas Raiders. According to a probable cause affidavit filed by the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, Sanchez threw Tole toward a wall and also onto the ground during the altercation, while Tole sprayed Sanchez with pepper spray and eventually stabbed him.

Tole spent two days in the hospital after suffering a deep laceration on his left cheek that his attorney said affected his ability to speak. On Oct. 6, Tole filed a civil lawsuit against Sanchez, alleging he had suffered “severe permanent disfigurement, loss of function, other physical injuries, emotional distress, and other damages” as a result of the 38-year-old former NFL player’s actions.

Fox Corp. was named as a co-defendant in the case.

Sanchez remained in the hospital for a week after the incident. He was excused from attending an Oct. 22 pre-trial conference for his criminal case, as his attorney said he was still recovering from his injuries. The trial is set to begin Dec. 11.

With Brees, Fox has replaced Sanchez with one of the NFL’s all-time greats at quarterback. Brees played for the San Diego Chargers and New Orleans Saints during his 20 years in the NFL and is second behind Tom Brady in many of the league’s passing records, including touchdowns and yards. In his first year of eligibility, he is among the 52 modern-era players under consideration for the 2026 Pro Football Hall of Fame class.

“Drew is one of the best to ever play the game, and we couldn’t be more excited to have his prolific credentials and unique insights as part of our coverage on Sundays,” Brad Zager, president of Production and Operations at Fox Sports, said in a statement. “We’re thrilled to welcome him to the Fox Sports family.”

Upon retiring in 2020, Brees called games on NBC for one season. More recently, he has appeared on in-studio shows on various networks and is slated to be part of Netflix’s coverage of Christmas Day games for the second year.

“I appreciate the opportunity Fox has given me in the booth and with their team,” Brees said in a statement. “I hope my passion for this game is reflected in the knowledge and insights I provide to the fans each Sunday.”

Warner Bros. Discovery reported a $148 million loss in the third quarter, hitting a sour note as the company began fielding interest from would-be buyers as Hollywood braces for a transforming deal.

Earnings for the entertainment company that includes HBO, CNN and the Warner Bros. film and TV studios fell short of analyst expectations. A year ago, the company reported profit of $135 million for the third quarter.

Revenue of $9.05 billion declined 6% from the year-ago period. The company swung to a loss of 6 cents a share, compared to last year’s earnings of 5 cents a share.

Still, Chief Executive David Zaslav spent much of Thursday’s call with analysts touting his company’s underlying strengths — while avoided giving details about the company’s sale.

“It’s fair to say that we have an active process underway,” Zaslav said.

Warner Bros. Discovery on Thursday reiterated it is forging ahead with previously announced plans to split into two separate entities by next spring. However, the Warner board acknowledged last month that it was also entertaining offers for the entire company — or its parts — after David Ellison’s Paramount expressed its interest with formal bids.

Paramount has made three offers, including a $58 billion in cash and stock for all of Warner Bros. Discovery. That bid would pay Warner stockholders $23.50 a share.

The Ellison family appears determined to win one of Hollywood’s most storied entertainment companies to pair with Paramount, which the Ellisons and RedBird Capital Partners acquired in August.

But Warner Bros. Discovery’s board, including Zaslav, voted unanimously to reject Paramount’s offers and instead opened the auction to other bidders, which is expected to lead to the firm changing hands for the third time in a decade.

Board members are betting the company, which has shown flickers of a turnaround, is worth more than the offers on the table. Despite its rocky third-quarter results, Warner’s stock held its ground in early morning trading at around $22.60 a share.

“Overall we are very bullish,” Zaslav said of the company’s business prospects.

“When you look at our films like ‘Superman,’ ‘Weapons’ and ‘One Battle After Another,’ the global reach of HBO Max and the diversity of our network’s offerings, we’ve managed to bring the best, most treasured traditions of Warner Bros. forward into a new era of entertainment and [a] new media landscape,” he said.

But the company’s results underscored its business challenges.

The studio witnessed a major decline in advertising revenue in the third quarter, reporting $1.41 billion, down 16% from the previous year, which executives attributed to declines in the audience for its domestic linear channels, including CNN, TNT and TLC.

Distribution revenue also took a hit, as the company reported sales of $4.7 billion, a decrease of 4% compared to last year.

Studio revenue increased 24% to $3.3 billion, powered by the success of DC Studios’ “Superman,” horror flick “Weapons” and the latest installment of “The Conjuring.” But even those box office wins couldn’t totally offset shortfalls in other areas of its content business.

Last year, the company was able to sub-license its rights to broadcast the Olympics in Europe, which pushed content revenue to $2.72 billion. But this year, revenue was down 3% to $2.65 billion.

Burbank-based Warner Bros. has had a string of success in theaters, with nine films opening at the top spot globally at the box office. The studio recently surpassed $4 billion in worldwide box office revenue, making it the first studio to do so this year. Warner Bros. last achieved that milestone in 2019.

Zaslav would like to continue with Warner’s break-up plans, which were announced last June.

The move would allow him to stay on to manage a smaller Hollywood-focused entity made up of the Warner Bros. studios, HBO, streaming service HBO Max and the company’s vast library, which includes Harry Potter movies and award-winning television shows such as “The Pitt.”

The company’s large portfolio of cable channels, including HGTV, Food Network and Cartoon Network, would become Discovery Global and operate independently.

Beyond Paramount, Philadelphia-based Comcast, Netflix and Amazon have expressed interest in considering buying parts of the company.

The company said its third quarter loss of $148 million was the result of a $1.3 billion expense, including restructuring costs.

Politics in the year after a presidential election are typically focused on local and statewide contests.

But the races decided on Tuesday — which include a pivotal mayoral contest in New York and California’s referendum on congressional redistricting — will have national implications. The gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey will be a report card on President Trump’s second term.

As a result, cable news will be paying special attention. The races will also serve as an important test run for a couple of cable news networks in transition.

“This is the first election of the 2026 midterms, and we know what happens 30 seconds after the mid-terms are over — 2028 starts in earnest,” said Chris Stirewalt, political editor for Nexstar Media Group’s NewsNation. “In New Jersey and Virginia, you have two states that look a lot like the country as a whole. President Trump’s approval ratings in those places is about the same as it is nationally.”

MSNBC will be covering its first election night without the resources of NBC News. The progressive-leaning network — which changes its name to MS NOW on Nov. 15 — is being spun off by parent company Comcast into a new entity called Versant.

NBC News no longer shares correspondents or analysts with MSNBC. The channel’s line-up of opinion hosts including Rachel Maddow, Joe Scarborough, Nicolle Wallace, Ari Melber and Lawrence O’Donnell remains intact.

Loyal MSNBC viewers will notice that election data maven Steve Kornacki will not be crunching numbers on his big board. Kornacki signed a new deal last year with NBC, where he works for the news and sports divisions.

Kornacki will be a part of the network’s coverage on NBC News Now, its free streaming channel. “NBC Nightly News” anchor Tom Llamas is leading the coverage with Hallie Jackson, the network’s senior Washington correspondent; and “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker.

MSNBC host Ali Velshi will take on the voter analysis duties previously held down by Kornacki. The network said it will have 15 correspondents reporting throughout the country, including West Coast-based Jacob Soboroff delivering analysis on TikTok.

MSNBC national correspondent Jacob Soboroff.

(MSNBC/Paul Morigi/MSNBC)

CNN will use the night to test the appeal of its new direct-to-consumer streaming service launched last week.

While CNN will have its usual array of anchors and experts led by anchor Jake Tapper, Anderson Cooper and Erin Burnett, the network will also offer an alternative streaming feed featuring its analyst Harry Enten alongside conservative commentator Ben Shapiro and “The Breakfast Club” radio host Charlamagne tha God.

“CNN Election Livecast” will be only be available from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Pacific to subscribers of CNN All Access. The program will be a discussion of the results presented as “a more casual option” for viewers, according to a representative for the network.

The feed will mark the first time CNN, owned by Warner Bros. Discover, has produced full-scale live coverage exclusively for a streaming audience.

Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier of Fox News

(Fox News)

Fox News will rely on anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum for a special telecast at 10 p.m. Eastern and 7 p.m. Pacific, pre-empting its comedic talk show “Gutfeld!”

The 2025 election night will also mark a change in calling the results. All of the major broadcast networks and cable channels will be using data analysis from the Associated Press, which teamed with Fox News and NORC at the University of Chicago several years ago to create an alternative to the research company used by CBS, NBC, ABC and CNN.

Starting Tuesday, all five networks will get voting results at the same time.

Leland Vittert, Elizabeth Vargas and Chris Cuomo will anchor election night coverage for NewsNation.

(NewsNation)

The exception is Nexstar Media Group’s NewsNation, which will use Decision Desk HQ to call its races during its coverage co-anchored by Stirewalt, Chris Cuomo, Leland Vittert and Elizabeth Vargas. The service was the first to call the results of the 2024 presidential election, beating the competition by 15 minutes.

The ability to call the races sooner means more time for analysis, which is expected to lean heavily into what the results say about the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential campaign.

Stirewalt said the night has the potential to set up the political plot lines of the next two years. He believes the passage of Proposition 50 in California and a victory for New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani would elevate Gov. Gavin Newsom and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as 2028 presidential contenders.

“That’s would be a big feather in the cap for AOC, who can say that she’s leading a movement,” Stirewalt said. “Gavin Newsom gets to ring the bell. He gets to say ‘I won. I did something that was controversial. I took it to Donald Trump. I’m delivering a win.’”