For right now Phil’s viewpoint better be that he’s under contract. Now when the contract comes up for renewal that’s another matter entirely. There might be an apology, but it won’t be for what most people think, it’ll be for their handler completely screwing the pooch, that question should have been on the banned list and Phil should have been stopped from answering it. There’s plenty of gospeling Phil can do that doesn’t relate to things that cause backlash and boycotts. Of course most network apologies are written on checks.
Of course he's under contract and knows it. The question is whether A&E violated, and thereby voided, that contract--no doubt they invoked a "morals clause." We're arguing nationally just what is moral, and A&E's one-sided interpretation of that is legally challengeable. They knew who and what Phil was beforehand, and they have not previously attempted to rein him in when he's made numerous other similar pronouncements.
Moreover, the family is also under contract, and they can put A&E right behind the eight ball simply by publicly agreeing completely with Phil's stance. Is A&E going to suspend all of them?
I broke my reply into two sections.
The Gospel itself causes offense, as Jesus predicted. Phil will not agree to abridge it in order to avoid or even minimize controversy, for that is inherent in the Gospel itself, as Phil well knows. Since he agreed to do the show specifically in order to have a bigger platform for preaching the Gospel, he is very unlikely to agree to moderating it in any way. Moreover, he will resist firmly any attempt to muzzle him--he'll see it as Satan's intervention.
In short, Phil is sure he has already won. A&E's suspension has increased the broadcasting of his message by many orders of magnitude. God is fully controlling these events--He is using A&E even as He did Pharaoh.