Blame Oprah she made this guy he used to get a weekly show on her show. He spun off from that. Back when Oprah got sued over the mad cow disease thing she reached out to dr Phil for a coaching. He made an impression. He his tv career was launched from her show. Dr Phil almost immediately took shit as he began selling weight loss books. Dudes overweight telling people how to lose weight. His kid was selling books at one point as a teenager. Under the dr Phil banner zero qualifications he’s just selling books giving advice.

Talk shows have always had a sketchy past. They pay the guests w dinners free travel nice hotel rooms. It’s a free vacation for embarrassing yourself on tv. The guests are either willing or manipulated by producers to get results.

Jerry springers producers would often call the same guests with rather leading questions “ do you know anyone who is white married adopted 6 black kids who’s racist ?” If they wanted back on the show the answer would be well I’m white and I adopted 4 black kids and I’m member of the KKK.

Oh we didn’t know that can you do the show

Then they would go on and follow the premise they laid out for vacation.

No matter how many times it made news in the 90s that daytime tv shows were fake the audience grew and grew and people were absolutely convinced it was real.

Dr Phil to me has always been shady but people watch him buy his services buy his books. Really no different from Morton Downey jr Jerry springer or the queen herself Oprah. Martha Stewart created the business model of using daytime talk show format turning it into a infomercial for selling merchandise from her own company. Oprah and dr Phil followed. Remember Oprah had book clubs and magazines?

People also think shows like survivor are real too.