The media startup founded by famous TV talk show host Dr. Phil McGraw has reportedly laid off about a third of its 100 employees.
Merritt Street Media, which McGraw founded earlier this year, completed its job cuts on Monday, cutting fewer than 40 jobs, mostly in its morning and evening news divisions, a source familiar with the layoffs said. He told Bloomberg.
The Fort Worth, Texas-based company has revived McGraw’s daytime chat show, “Dr. Phil Primetime,” which airs on the Merritt Street TV network.
“Following the brief summer hiatus of ‘Dr. Phil Primetime,’ Merritt Street undertook an ongoing consolidation of departments and roles to achieve the highest level of efficiency, which unfortunately has resulted in “We are reducing staff numbers,” the media company said in a statement.
Sources told Bloomberg that the new hires were not receiving severance pay.
“These layoffs have come as a huge shock to all staff,” one worker said. He told Media It.
“Some people left their whole lives to move here for this job with no safety net, and now it’s like the rug has been pulled out from under them.”
McGraw, who rose to fame as a regular guest on Oprah Winfrey’s talk show, ended his 21-year run on daytime television early last year.
He announced his return to the airwaves last November with the newly branded network’s “Dr. Phil Primetime.”
“I chose ‘Merit’ to celebrate the meritocracy on which our great country is built, and ‘Street’ to represent America’s ‘Main Street,'” McGraw said in a February statement.
The network was launched through a partnership with Trinity Broadcasting Network, a self-described Christian television group that reaches 80 million homes, according to the network’s website.
While the original show featured “Dr. Phil” talking to rule-breaking teens, drug addicts and conspiracy theorists, McGraw is tackling hot-button topics in his new show.
In June, he interviewed former President Donald Trump.
