70% of CBS stations desired a late-evening talk show. Yet in 1969, this is just what was offered to them—in the person of Merv Griffin. But despite his success as a syndicated TV phenomenon, Griffin's CBS ratings could never compete with Johnny Carson's consistently high audience numbers. And thus, in pulling the plug on Griffin in early 1972, CBS committed its late night programming to classic feature films as well as the debut of more recent theatrical fare. This move proved an effective ploy because two months after The CBS Late Movie premiered, the Nielsen ratings recorded that it had drawn a larger audience than The Tonight Show. One CBS executive had a simple explanation for this sudden (though short-lived) good fortune: "People just like to watch movies." The CBS Late Movie/Late Night block, however, was not always cleared by every affiliate of the network; in several markets, the block was either delayed by one hour from its regularly-scheduled time (most notably in the Central and Mountain time zones), picked up by a local independent station (including those that later affiliated with the Fox network), or not seen at all in certain cities. Those stations that did not carry CBS Late Night instead broadcast movies from their own libraries and/or their own lineup of off-network syndicated sitcoms, drama reruns, and first-run syndication products. A large factor in the programming decisions of many CBS affiliates electing not to clear CBS Late Night (or delaying it) was due to head-to-head competition with NBC's The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and starting in 1980, ABC News' Nightline. ABC themselves went with a similar format to CBS Late Night, with Wide World of Entertainment, which later gave way to ABC Late Night, which consisted of reruns of that network's prime time series, original movies, and some first-run programming. Preemptions and delays of the block by CBS affiliates increased during the 1980s, and into the early 1990s, as the syndication market began to grow more, and several stations deciding it would be more financially beneficial to air syndicated programming, thus keeping all advertising revenue for themselves. The debut of The Pat Sajak Show in January 1989 gained some affiliates back to the CBS Late Night lineup; however, some CBS affiliates elected to air The Arsenio Hall Show in syndication instead; in the case of CBS' Chicago station, WBBM-TV, both shows aired back-to-back after the late