The executive whom his longtime friends and colleagues adoringly labeled “The Blur” was back in the news this past week, finally memoralizing a position he’s essentially had for a while with an actual title and press release. THE DESK’s Matthew Keys was among the many who reported it on Friday:
Dr. Phil McGraw’s media company Merit TV has appointed former Tennis Channel executive Ken Solomon to serve as the company’s CEO and President, starting this month.
Solomon has served as a board member and advisor to Merit TV dating to the company’s founding as Merit Street Media, where he spent a considerable amount of time helping McGraw build his media startup to the point that the Tennis Channel and its parent company Sinclair terminated his employment last year.
If that story line sounds familiar to you regulars, it’s because we devoted a musing around Labor Day to that occurrence, as gob-smacked as anyone that the new owners of a network dedicated to tennis would dare oust its leader midway through the freaking U.S. Open. And if you thought I was surprised, you should have read how THE NEW YORK POST’s Alexandra Steigrad chronicled it all a couple of days later:
Anonymous sources told The Journal that Solomon’s work with Dr. Phil was seen as a “growing distraction.” People close to Solomon countered that the exec has held similar roles outside the company throughout his tenure at the Tennis Channel, a post he has held since 2005, with no complaints.
Insiders were shocked to hear of Solomon’s departure from the network he helped build. “Ken is the Tennis Channel,” said Micky Lawler, who headed the Women’s Tennis Association for nearly a decade. “He is always ahead of the curve, I just can’t imagine not having him there.” That sentiment was echoed by legendary tennis player and Tennis Channel commentator Martina Navratilova, who said the exec’s “level of passion is only matched by his business acumen and vision for the future.”
Another tension point appeared to be Sinclair’s desire for Solomon to work in Tennis Channel’s Santa Monica, Calif., offices, though the former chairman had recently purchased property in Dallas. McGraw’s company is based in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. People close to Solomon said the acquisition is a horse ranch for Solomon’s wife and that he still has a home in Los Angeles.
But as I reminded you readers in my reaction, Solomon has essentially built his career on his ability to successfully multitask–and I personally benefitted from it.
When I first crossed paths with him he was a tenacious, fast-rising syndication sales executive with training in research from folks I’ve known for decades. Tenacious enough that he would regularly close markets with atypical speed; his true loyalists nicknamed him “The Blur” because of his laser-focused approach to getting results…And when I consulted for Solomon while he was in the midst of what he believed was an existential crisis for TTC as he pursued legal action against 800-pound gorilla Comcast, he was simultaneously serving as chairman of a smaller arts-centric called Ovation.
What I neglected to note at that time was that when my duties on the specific Tennis Channel issue which Ken brought me in for had been put on hold due to the extensively drawn out legal process that taking on Comcast entailed, knowing I was still looking for work Ken introduced me to the team at Ovation and I worked with their team as they expanding their footprint beyond their core of highbrow–and mostly extremely low-rated–fare toward more populist acquisitions and genres. Ovation was just beginning to get proprietary Nielsen and Comscore ratings, so minuscule that they needed to be extended out to three decimal points to determine any actual movement, and lacking an experienced research expert Ken thought it would be a good idea for his colleagues to get my input on how significant or not these fluctuations were and what, if any, cross-over there was between their core and these broader reaches. It allowed me a few more months of income and, most importantly, involvement in a worthy project with some very talented and decent people.
And as THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER’s Alex Weprin reported Friday via Solomon himself (the only true “exclusivity” that was otherwise trumpeted), it’s that same sort of vision and ability to look outside the box that Solomon intends to bring to McGraw’s fledgling network:
Throughout my career, I’ve been fortunate to be part of organizations that were white-hot at times when those media companies were spring-loaded and on the brink of explosive industry changing innovation and growth — and that’s where Dr. Phil’s Merit TV stands right now,” he continued. “Dr. Phil is creating the ultimate next-generation TV media company brand. I am beyond thrilled to be joining him, Joel Cheatwood, and the entire team as we quickly build Merit TV into one of the most powerful disruptive forces in the world of legacy media across news, entertainment, lifestyle, sports, and whatever we invent next.”
Merit in recent weeks announced a slate of podcasts (including a show hosted by former Bachelor host Chris Harrison) that will also be televised and streamed, and announced plans to get into boxing a via a league with TCL Team Boxing League.
“We want to fully explore all the things he couldn’t do before, that he can do now,” Solomon says. “It’s just finding the most interesting, relevant stories to the most people. And they can be evergreen, or they can be temporal, in terms of the mix, it’s important, we wouldn’t flip into a library network ever. It’s important to be temporal, to have news.”
And he says that more sports deals are coming soon, particularly “untapped” or “under-leveraged” sports or leagues.
The initial returns on Merit Street and McGraw’s efforts, largely focused on what many observers see as right-leaning news and opinion that falls more in line with what one might see on Newsmax, OAN or Salem Media’s properties, haven’t been great. While its footprint via all possible distribution mechanisms including over-the-air TV, FAST channels and traditional VMPVDs is impressive, its audience has been underwhelming, to say the least. It’s actually a similar start that McGraw’s one-time boss Oprah Winfrey got off to when she launched OWN, where she gave an exceptional amount of attention to her SUPER SOUL SUNDAY mash-up of self-help and inspiration and far less to more crucial dayparts and audience opportunities, especially where her outsized appeal to Black females wasn’t being fully maximized. Once she allowed others with greater expertise like Tyler Perry and Ava DuVernay into her camp and allowed scripted series to be part of OWN’s portfolio–a concept initially pitched to her during Peter Liguori’s brief run as the corporate overseer of her network that she initially sneered at–OWN became more viable, sellable and ultimately a network worthy of being a full-fledged part of the Discovery family of networks.
So Solomon is about as qualified as anyone to take a niche player and find ways to bring more different samplers into the tent, and in the process grow the core elements as well. And it’s that skill set that should take precedence over anything else that some (yes, including me) find ironic in the fact that someone with Solomon’s political history —a fact that the NEW YORK TIMES’ Richard Sandomir (another fine John Bowne High School alumnus) reported when Solomon’s battle with Comcast reached an inglorious conclusion–is now running what at least now is known as little more than yet another red-pilled entity.
Early on in the process of expanding Truth Social there was a plan to expand the media “empire” that Trump toady Devin Nunes was tasked with–acronymically known as Trump Media and Technology Group–into a video outlet, something that ROLLING STONE’s Adam Rawnsley and Asawin Suebsaeng reported on in May 2022:
An investors presentation filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission when TMTG had its initial public offering in the fall of 2021 gave the first indications that the company aimed to branch out into streaming video. The company listed producer Scott St. John as the future leader of TMTG+’s programming. Like former President Trump, St. John worked on a gameshow at NBC as a producer on Deal or No Deal and America’s Got Talent. In addition to its interest in original programming, on Wednesday TMTG+ also advertised for a “content acquisition professional” who can help the channel “identify content for licensing, Source ownership, and negotiate distribution rights” for the platform.
Knowing St. John from his earliest days as a young FOX development executive, I spoke at length with him about that content acquisition position, knowing full well from my experience in analyzing the audiences of shows like JEOPARDY! and WHEEL OF FORTUNE that traditional game shows has outsized appeal with the kind of mindsets that would be part of the Truth Social ecosystem. Like so many efforts announced by Trump, it ultimately was a lot of hype that eventually went nowhere. I mean, have YOU seen anything from TMTG+ besides the “founder’s” all-caps overnight rants? But that doesn’t negate the fact what St. John was tasked with–and the validation I offered which he wholeheartedly endorsed–wasn’t spot on.
I submit unconditionally that Solomon is as aware of those facts of life as I am and regardless of where his personal political leanings may or may not be he’s more than capable of helping McGraw as much as possible for his particular issue. Per Keys it appears McGraw is as aware of that as anybody:
“In searching for a fearless leader to take the helm of Merit Street Media, I made a bet with Ken while playing tennis just after he left Tennis Channel — I WON,” McGraw said in a statement on Thursday. “Seriously, Ken Solomon is in my opinion one-of-one when it comes to network-media executives, we wanted the absolute best to head up Merit TV, and we had to wait months for Ken to complete his prior obligations. It was well worth the wait.”
And given what I know, I’m right behind McGraw with that enthusiasm.
Incidentally, I may not be able to ride horses, but I’m open to moving to Dallas, too. I’m able to blur whatever lines of ideology might otherwise get in the way of a darn good life choice, too. Maybe we all should be a little more open-minded in those regards.
Until next time…