Dr. Phil-hosted NYPD reality show set for release in court settlement

A reality series on the New York Police Department hosted by talk show host Phil McGraw, widely known as Dr. Phil, will be released with the final cut by the police department, according to a settlement city lawyers announced on Friday.

The city Law Department told federal Judge Denise L. Cote, of the Southern District of New York, that they had reached an agreement with Jordan McGraw, Dr. Phil’s son and producer of “Behind the Badge,” the true crime reality show made up of scenes of NYPD officers at work.

“The city has got a fantastic police department,” said Mcgraw’s lawyer Charles Babcock of Jackson Walker, after the Friday court appearance where the city announced the settlement, adding that he expected the series to “show their human side.”

The city sued McGraw and his production company in January accusing them of shopping around sloppily edited draft episodes of the show that could reveal the identity undercover officers, crime victims and witnesses and leak the details of “sensitive police operations.”

The suit said that McGraw had initially agreed to allow the city final say in what material becomes part of the series, but then had allegedly begun the process of looking for a distributor for the show before they had the greenlight.

In their unedited form, the city claimed that parts of the episodes that McGraw had submitted were “extremely problematic” and “pose an imminent threat to the life and safety of active NYPD officers,” but McGraw initially refused to accept that the content was not usable, according to the suit.

The city got the court to issue a restraining order blocking the release of the show, and had been seeking to extend that order until after McGraw had finished editing the draft episodes when it announced the settlement.

McGraw Media has submitted four episodes, which the NYPD has vetted, but the police have five more episodes in the series to review by the end of April. The settlement sets out a schedule for the review and reaffirms McGraw’s commitment to remove any footage the NYPD deems “inaccurate, confidential or that the NYPD is legally prohibited from releasing.”

Beyond safety considerations, McGraw agreed to refrain from any perceived criticism of the NYPD as part of the agreement. The settlement explicitly forces McGraw Media “to remove all content that portray the City or the NYPD in a negative light as exclusively determined by the NYPD.”

In the case of further disagreements over edits related, McGraw agreed to promptly meet and confer with the city before any parties seek the further court intervention.

“I just know they’re going to be satisfied with the edits,” Babcock said.