"Dr. Phil" Talk Show to End in Spring after 21 Seasons
by Cynthia Littleton
Jan. 31, 2023


"Dr. Phil", one of daytime TV’s stalwart talk shows, will end its run of original episodes in the spring after 21 seasons.

Dr. Phil McGraw, 72, made the decision to stop producing new episodes at the close of the current 2022-23 season. Distributor CBS Media Ventures hopes to keep the syndicated "Dr. Phil" on the air with a package of repeats through at least the 2023-24 season.



“I have been blessed with over 25 wonderful years in daytime television,” McGraw said in a statement.

“With this show, we have helped thousands of guests and millions of viewers through everything from addiction and marriage to mental wellness and raising children. This has been an incredible chapter of my life and career, but while I’m moving on from daytime, there is so much more I wish to do.”

https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/dr-phil-talk-show-end-oprah-cbs-1235508811/

I have never figured out how in the world Dr. Phil became a superstar in the first place but it seems that when Oprah introduced a popular guest that usually means that a superstar will become famous due to Oprah and be a star for years to come and is the ticket for getting their own show. Which is what happened with Dr. Phil because ever since he promoted his new books on Oprah he became a regular guest on Oprah ever since. But I didn't even know who Dr. Phil was until Mom saw one of his books in a thrift store and she started learning more about him but I think once his talk show ends Dr. Phil is gonna launch a syndicated radio show and write more books. Because ever since Oprah made him famous Dr. Phil became a huge celebrity by having books speaking engagement tours launching his own line of diet products called Shape Up and more and it shows that whenever you were a guest on Oprah Oprah Winfrey was your claim to fame. Look at Nate Berkus and look at Dr. Travis Stork who starred in The Doctors which was another Oprah spin-off show and Nate Berkus who had The Nate Berkus Show also produced by Oprah and you see that these celebrity guests got these shows due to Oprah. And the only one that doesn't have a show of her own is Oprah's personal chef Rosie Daley who cowrote the cookbook In The Kitchen With Rosie with Oprah in the 90's. But I'll predict that Dr. Phil will still be a huge celebrity for years to come
Bestie

Amazing it lasted so long!!

Mah name is Doctah Phiyil.

That's about as far as I ever got.

When I lived in Northern NJ, I used to watch WCBS and they used to show Dr. Phil during the breaks saying something like “Our topic today is…” these lasted a minute or so. Did these ever air nationally?

I was a big fan of the show and am sorry to see it go. Most of the time the insane people he had on were entertaining. I mostly liked the direction and advice he gave to these people. Now, was this exploitation? Probably in a small way. There is a current or a very former thread about Jerry Springer and Maury about their crazy guests and their issues and accuse Dr Phil of going after a similar base. Much like Maury, Phil did DNA tests to prove if someone was the father or not.

Some of the things I did not like about Dr Phil.

This was several years ago, but him and the show latched on to a family, an upper class white family with a daughter in her early twenties named Alexandra. Alexandra was a complete "train wreck". She had like three children from three different fathers. One father of a child was a complete moron. She was also addicted to prescription pills (and who knows what else). Phil followed this family for several years. They "rescued" her from a ran down trailer park once. At least one of her babies had drugs in their system. She was pregnant (again) and Phil is talking with the harried mother who I think might be the problem, but to their credit took in every baby she shot out. Had Alexandra on the show and private interviews numerous times. Once at least with her and her sister and Phil was giving her sister mess, when she overall with some caveats, was living a normal life. In the end it seemed Phil just invaded their familiy's life (with their permission) over a private a personal issue. Where is Alexandra? Who knows. At least the show got her into "rehab" numerous times. I hope at least the family got paid for their exploitation which I am sure they did.

Phil's duck faced wife. She was on every show and every times there was a pregnant pause of uncomfotablity, there was the goofy wife frame showing her disdain.

Phil defending his staff. Everytime one of the guests had something contrary to his staff, he would grill the guest like the inquistion and bring out the member of staff like they were holy humiliating the guest. Sometimes, deserved, but I think otherwise not.

Other than that, a good show. I and my late mother when I was home watched it everyday. I still see clips on Youtube. But Phil is nearly 70, very wealthy and it is time to hang it up sometime. Maybe they will find another personality like a psychiatric Dr. Oz to take the show over and it will continue. The ratings were always high and there are more than enough people more than willing to air their nonsense on national television.

Time will tell.

It was still on? I stopped watching shows aimed at women decades ago.

Good riddance to Dr. Phil (https://news.yahoo.com/dr-phil-ending-years-scandals-220136630.html)

Helen Holmes
Wed, February 1, 2023 at 2:01 PM PST·6 min read

After 21 seasons of sensational programming focused on everything from delinquent offspring to rampant substance abuse to extramarital affairs, Dr. Phil (https://forums.primetimer.com/forum/607-dr-phil/), the hit daytime talk show (https://www.reddit.com/r/drphil/) led by Dr. Phil McGraw, will end after its current season per the host’s choice, Variety reported Tuesday.

It’s the end of an era for the authoritative, Southern-accented TV star, who holds a doctorate in clinical psychology but is not a licensed therapist. For years, the show lured droves of audiences (and continues to average 2 million viewers per episode) with McGraw’s pointed interviews with troubled guests, which could be as hilarious as they were harrowing, despite the fact that the show is itself a consistent magnet for lawsuits, scandals, and criticism.

Off-screen storms

One of the host’s early controversies involved Britney Spears during the peak of her mid-aughts mental health struggles; in January 2008, McGraw was permitted to visit her while she was being hospitalized for a mental breakdown. He later made public statements about the visit that alienated Spears’ family and left them chastising McGraw for betraying their trust. In response to criticism that he was trying to insert himself into the story purely for entertainment value, McGraw canceled a planned episode of Dr. Phil about Spears’ situation.

More recently, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, McGraw caught flack for questioning the need for social distancing to prevent the spread of the virus.

“The fact of the matter is we have people dying, 45,000 people a year die from automobile accidents, 480,000 from cigarettes, 360,000 a year from swimming pools, but we don’t shut the country down for that,” McGraw had said on Laura Ingraham’s The Ingraham Angle. “But yet we are doing it for this and the fallout is going to last for years because people’s lives are being destroyed.”

Legal battles abound

Those off-screen antics are just the tip of the iceberg, as McGraw is no stranger to lawsuits stemming from his divisive show. In 2021, a woman who alleged that she was sexually assaulted at a ranch in Utah sued McGraw and ViacomCBS for negligence after the host had recommended she be sent there on an episode of Dr. Phil. The show was also sued for defamation by Surinamese brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe, two suspects in the case of the disappearance of Natalee Holloway.

In another lawsuit, Shirley Rae Dieu alleged that during a taping session at the Dr. Phil House for an episode that eventually aired in 2007, she had been held against her will and “forced to be in the same room with a completely live naked man while he exposed his entire naked body, genitals and all.”

“All of Shirley Rae Dieu’s claims are without merit,” Dr. Phil’s lawyers responded in a statement. “Once Ms. Dieu expressed her discomfort, and producers ascertained there was nothing they could do to help her, they called a car service to return her to her home.”

Behind-the-scenes manipulation

And then there’s the show itself, which has long faced criticism that it goes too far in pursuit of entertainment by exploiting vulnerable people and taking advantage of their problems to boost ratings.

In 2022, BuzzFeed spoke to a dozen current and former Dr. Phil employees who said they’d experienced a miserable work environment where they were encouraged to inflate onscreen racist stereotypes and, in one instance, ensure a guest was not properly medicated before her appearance so she’d look unstable. McGraw’s personal attorney refuted the claims, dismissing them as clickbait.

A rambling 2016 interview with reclusive actress Shelley Duvall was resoundingly condemned, and Todd Herzog, a recovering alcoholic and former winner of Survivor, alleges that his inebriated appearance on Dr. Phil in 2013 was engineered by producers who he said gave him Xanax and put handles of vodka in his dressing room. A psychologist affiliated with the show denied Herzog’s allegations.

‘A cautionary tale’

According to experts and critics who spoke with The Daily Beast, the end of McGraw’s show is long overdue.

“The legacy of Dr. Phil is a cautionary tale,” addiction activist Ryan Hampton told us on Wednesday. “It wasn’t just his attitude and his approach, which was everything we’re taught not to do. He never really approached a situation with compassion.

‘Dr. Phil’ Staffers Say Brutal Workplace Culture Worthy of ‘Nightmares’

“What really irked me was the exploitation of these stories and the exploitation of people who were in a crisis state to peddle sponsors’ products,” Hampton continued. “It was well known that if you want to up your admission rates at your treatment facility in Malibu, or sell your virtual reality treatment program that’s rooted in zero science, then you just need to do a sponsorship with Dr. Phil’s show. From my community, it’s good riddance.”

That sentiment was echoed on Tuesday by Taylor Cole Miller, an assistant professor of media studies at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, who tweeted on Tuesday, “The Dr. Phil tapings I went to were manipulative, unethical, and representative of bad television production practices for a show that claims to be intellectually honest and moral.”

Speaking to The Daily Beast, Miller elaborated, “At one taping I attended, we had a Michael Jackson dance-off, people were excited and happy and I even got a Dr. Phil heart-shaped stress ball. That episode was about teen suicide. After it wrapped, they moved us to different spots in the studio to tape a second show, and the dance-off continued. We thought: maybe this one will be a lighter episode. The second episode was about teens who seriously abuse their parents.

“The sudden crash of being slammed with such a heavy topic after being produced to be silly and giddy felt either extremely psychologically manipulative or grossly incompetent,” Miller continued. “My educated guess is that kind of producing is intentional on Dr. Phil, because the quick juxtaposition between those sentiments will elicit a more emotional response.”

Indeed, the consensus among critics is that pulling McGraw and Dr. Phil from the airwaves is a net positive—even if his next move is, scarily, still up in the air.

“I think it’s probably a good thing for the community that he no longer will be broadcasting,” psychiatrist Dr. Jeffrey Sugar, who’s criticized McGraw in the past for his comments on Spears, told The Daily Beast. “Although I shudder to consider what he might do instead.”

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The most interesting thing about his show was seeing what his wife was wearing, at each show's end.

The show ended because they were losing ad revenue.

‘Dr. Phil’ tried to revamp itself in final months as sponsors fled: sources​ (https://nypost.com/2023/02/05/dr-phil-tried-to-revamp-in-final-months-as-sponsors-fled-sources/)

Indeed, despite the fact “Dr. Phil” averaged more than 2 million viewers in the 3 p.m. time slot — the second-highest rated show in daytime behind ABC’s “Live with Ryan and Kelly,” according to Nielsen — the show had become radioactive for many sponsors, according to sources close to the situation.

And this is a bad thing?

It really says a lot about Oprah Winfrey's character that she brought us two of the biggest charlatans to ever appear on daytime TV.

Phil McGraw launching his own cable network with a nightly Dr. Phil Primetime show (https://deadline.com/2023/11/phil-mcgraw-cable-network-dr-phil-primetime-nightly-show-1235593847/#:~:text=EXCLUSIVE%3A%20Following%20the%20end%20of,nightly%20at%208%20PM%20ET.)

EXCLUSIVE: Following the end of his long-running daytime syndicated talk show, Dr. Phil McGraw is launching Merit Street Media, a new news and entertainment cable TV network. It will be anchored by Dr. Phil Primetime, which will premiere Feb. 26, 2024 and will air nightly at 8 PM ET.

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From viral meltdowns to real-life exploitation, this deep dive uncovers how America's favorite TV therapist turned daytime drama into a media empire. We break down the controversies, the ranch, the lawsuits, and the memes because therapy shouldn’t come with commercial breaks.

👀 Watch until the end for the wildest guest stories ever aired.