Jon Stewart welcomed all his viewers back after a two-week hiatus on Monday. All his viewers except for DirecTV customers, that is.
The late-night host spent a segment of his show mocking the war between DirecTV and Viacom. The fee dispute between the two led DirecTV to drop Comedy Central, the home of Stewart's show, last week. When the company directed its customers to watch the dropped shows online, Viacom retaliated by taking full-length episodes off its websites (online streaming has since returned).
Stewart reacted incredulously on Monday night. He said that both companies were blaming each other in ad campaigns that portrayed the dispute like "some kind of basic cable Arab Spring."
"I got news for you," Stewart declared. "It's not.
Then, he blasted Viacom for its part in the war. "You’re pulling the shows from the Internet?" he asked in disbelief. "Viacom, what are you, China?"
He said that young people know how to work around the restrictions. "So basically you’re blocking the old people from watching the show and just giving people a chance to discover that there's other entertaining ---- in the world," Stewart concluded.
Those things include "sports, games, the Bible, masturbation," according to Stewart. He added, "There was a guy I saw at the beach this weekend with a device, it was like an iPad, only thicker, it entertains you for hours. It’s like individual screens with words on it, like a movie you can direct in your own head."
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Posted: 07/17/2012 10:19 am Updated: 07/17/2012 10:33 am