 Although they were both largely unavailable on Dimension's systems beforehand, Showtime-The Movie Channel President Michael Weinblatt estimated that approximately 100,000 subscribers of the four partner systems already received either Showtime or TMC, and that the absorption of Spotlight would increase the total amount of paid subscribers to both channels by at least 650,000 to about eight million subscribers nationwide.As with most premium cable services at the time, Spotlight did not maintain exclusive first-run film licensing agreements major film studios, instead licensing films on an individual basis with studios such as Warner Bros. Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, Universal Studios, Columbia Pictures and Paramount Pictures; because of this lack of exclusivity over its content, the channel experienced a sizeable amount of duplication with its film inventory with Showtime, The Movie Channel and HBO, airing many of the same movies as any one of its competitors during the same calendar month.The channel's prime time movie schedule initially maintained a "flip-flop" format, in which one film would be broadcast at 7